Keeping Sabbath and Finding Rest – Even With Young Children!

For most of my life, this was a commandment I just sort of pushed aside.  Simply taking the day off and not going into my classroom as a teacher was good enough.  That is unless I wasn’t prepared for Monday – surely there was grace for that!  Several years ago, my husband and I were convicted about our Sabbath busyness.  The problem was we had no idea how to change the rhythm of our life.  Plus, we had kids.  Surely this commandment was not intended for young families!  I mean, come on God, if I stop for 30 minutes, let alone a whole day, the house is in disarray! 

Before long, we reached the point of “burnout” and realized that we actually needed a Sabbath rest.  We still had no idea how to make “rest” a reality in our lives, especially considering the constant energy required to parent young children.  So, we started trying some things.  We have finally reached a point that we are able to honor the Lord by our Sabbath rest, together, as a family … most of the time. 

I would love for your family to enjoy the same rest that we enjoy! Let me give you a little background on Sabbath and then share our experiences and tricks so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel! At the end I have a free printable Family Sabbath Planner. I hope you use it to make a Sabbath tradition that is fitting for your particular family.

What is Sabbath? 

Before I get into the logistics of how we do Sabbath, I want to give you a quick explanation on what Sabbath is.  (This is not an exhaustive study.  I recommend BlueLetterBible.org as a fantastic free resource if you’d like to delve deeper.) There are 117 uses of the word Sabbath in the ESV translation of the Bible.  It is a common theme throughout Scripture and therefore, important for us as Christians to understand and honor.  

Old Testament Precedent for Sabbath Rest

  

Jesus and the Sabbath

Jump ahead to the Gospels and we see Jesus address the topic of the Sabbath many times.  In total, Jesus performed 7 miracles on the Sabbath. This was a specific point of contention between him and the Jewish leaders of the time.  The Jewish leaders followed a strict interpretation of the Old Testament Sabbath laws and had even expanded upon them.  They failed to see who Jesus was and they failed to understand the true meaning of the Sabbath.  Therefore, it upset them to witness this “lawbreaker” so they sought to trap him in his Sabbath healings.  

Read the account in Matthew 12:1-14.  Jesus and his disciples pluck some heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath. The Pharisees are quick to question and accuse them of breaking the Sabbath laws.  Jesus responds to them by saying “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”. 

Then, he meets a man with a withered hand and the Pharisees again asked him if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath.  Jesus responds, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?  Of how much more value is a man than a sheep!  So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”  Jesus proceeds to heal the man. This leads to the Pharisees seeking to conspire a way to destroy him.  Mark’s account of the same events includes a key verse: Mark 2:27 “And he said to them, ‘the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’  So, Jesus taught that:

• It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. 
• He is the Lord of the Sabbath.
• The Sabbath is for man and not the other way around.  

Sabbath is a great Foreshadowing

In Hebrews, we find another revealing passage regarding Sabbath rest.  I would encourage you to read Hebrews 3:7-4:11.  In this passage, the writer of Hebrews quotes from Psalm 95 and encourages the readers to not follow in the footsteps of their Israelite forefathers who hardened their hearts in the wilderness and, as a result, were not able to enter into the “rest” of the promised land.  The writer of Hebrews points to the verse in the Psalm that says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”  The writer of Hebrews goes on to explain that if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.  He concludes in 4:9 with “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. . .”  

The Old Testament Sabbath, the commands and ordinances to cease working and rest, the wilderness journey and “promised land rest” for the Israelites after their Exodus from Egypt – all of it was a foreshadowing and a pointing to the ultimate Sabbath that we have in Christ!  Jesus provides a permanent and complete rest for his people through His finished work of salvation on the cross!  It is finished!  He is the Lord of the Sabbath and one day we will enter into that rest for all of eternity.  But it is not a “boring” rest. It is a rest from our attempts to be holy, from our labors, from wrestling with the curse of sin!  So, our weekly Sabbath remembrances are FOR us, as a blessing!  Each week we have a blessed opportunity to cease from our labors and rejoice in Jesus as our complete and everlasting Sabbath.  

Based on that understanding these are our family’s Sabbath principles: 

1. We do not participate in our normal work activities.  My husband does not go into the office.  My kids do not have chores that day.  I do not do laundry or clean.  
2. We do continue to do good.  That means that we still ensure everyone is clothed and fed in our family on the Sabbath.  I will wash sheets if someone happens to be ill and needs that good service.  We serve at our church that day.  My children are still expected to be kind and to obey on the Sabbath.  Opportunities for hospitality are embraced.
3. We make a point of celebrating Jesus as our Sabbath by singing about Him and proclaiming Christ as King.
4. We are intentional about recounting the blessings of the Lord.  As Palm 75 instructs, “We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near.  We recount your wondrous deeds.” 

Six tips for success from our experience

The first success we had was starting Sabbath Rest at 6 PM on Saturday and ending it at 6 PM on Sunday. 

When we tried to do all day Sunday we failed. The day started with me frantically trying to get all the kids dressed and out the door on time for church. It ended with me in a panic attack because our house was a disaster, and I wasn’t ready for Monday morning.  6:00 PM to 6:00 PM involves us preparing a bit on Saturday afternoon.  We slide breathlessly into our 6:00 PM start time and enjoy the stark contrast of work ceasing and rest beginning.  The rest of the evening is family time.  We end on Sunday evening with just enough time to quickly straighten up the house and get backpacks ready for Monday morning. 

The second success we had was celebrating with a meal at 6:00 PM on Saturday. 

For a while, we tried to do this on Sunday afternoon. I simply failed at getting home from church and whipping up something celebratory fast enough to satisfy our growling tummies.  Saturday Sabbath dinner works because there is time to prepare for it! 

We make the meal special by using our china and lighting candles.  The meal itself generally is not anything to write home about.  Sometimes we have tuna melts or hotdogs.  (One weekend we had just finished a big home improvement project so we had Taco Bell on our fine china!) The meal FEELS celebratory because it is on fancy dishes.  If you don’t have anything fancy, try browsing a thrift store!  Sometimes people donate entire sets of china!  We start the meal by singing “Rejoice the Lord is King” and toasting to Jesus our King.  The point is that we are doing something that sets this meal apart for our family.  How could you set apart a dinner for your family? I would encourage you to read this article on Family Devotions. A lot of the ideas there would be applicable to keeping Sabbath!

Our third success was in having a clearer focus. 

For a while, we had tried to do Sabbath by making a list of things not to do.  It ended up feeling very legalistic and pharisaical.  Instead, during Sabbath, we rest and celebrate that Jesus is our eternal rest!  We rejoice in the hope of the great rest to come and we teach our children what that means!  The point is not to sit around and be bored – but to embrace the already but not yet of the New Heavens and the New Earth.  It is a day that is set apart from the other days primarily because we focus on Christ’s victory and rest.  The decisions about which activities to partake in and which ones to avoid flows more naturally out of that focus. 

Our fourth success was adequate preparation. 

On Saturday afternoon we set the table.  We pick out Sunday clothes.  I pack the diaper bag for church and my husband gets his Sunday school lesson ready.  We think ahead to any homework that needs to be done for Monday.  One of us runs to the grocery store if we need anything for the weekend.  We often make something ahead for breakfast on Sunday.  Sunday lunch in our house tends to be leftovers, but if we are doing something else, I try to get it ready.  This preparation makes a huge difference – and we are not the first to do it!  The Israelites consistently prepared as well – on the Day of Preparation! 

Our fifth success is that we are on the same page. 

My husband and I have a unified view, we prepare together, and we keep each other accountable.  If you and your husband are not in agreement about this, I would encourage you to pray, pray, pray for unity!  Talk to your husband about Sabbath but do not whine or nag.  If he just isn’t all about it then do what you are able to do on your own and keep praying.  Remember that it isn’t so much about a list of dos and don’ts, rather it is about remembering the rest of God finished for you by Christ’s death and resurrection. 

Our sixth success is that we are intentional about counting our blessings and stirring up hearts of gratitude toward our great God.  

We make a point of reflecting on each individuals’ week in our family during our Sabbath meal by reflecting on the many activities we were able to participate in, the blessings of gifts from others (and more importantly how God blessed us through opportunities to give), ways we were able to serve, etc. and tie each of those to God’s providence and goodwill toward us. This is an active example of how we seek to obey the countless commands to bless the Lord and to recount all his blessings to us, such as Psalm 103’s command to “Bless the Lord, o my Soul, and forget not all his benefits.”  Or Psalm 75, “We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near.  We recount your wondrous deeds.”  Gratitude does wonders in recalibrating our attitudes and inspiring us to worship. 

Free Family Sabbath Planner

Conclusion

I really hope that your family is able to find rest from the craziness of life! We will never go back to life without Sabbath! Let me know in the comments how it goes for you. If you already do something for Sabbath I’d love to hear about that too! Give this article a share!