6 Reasons to Keep the Sabbath

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The seventh day is supposed to be kept holy. The Bible makes it clear that the Sabbath is meant to be a day of rest and prayer. The only work meant to be done is spiritual work through means such as prayer. Most people are aware of this fact, and many are aware that this is where the tradition of a non-working weekend originates. Few people, however, actually avoid work on the Sabbath. They may not go in to the office, but they still do plenty of work. They go to the grocery store or clean the house or pay the bills. This pseudo-rest, however, is not what the Bible meant by “keep the Sabbath holy.”

The Sabbath is meant to truly be a day of rest. It is meant to be a day without work that is not immediately and overwhelmingly necessary. Few people live their lives with a true Sabbath, however, keeping the Sabbath has multiple benefits even in the modern era. Truly observing the Sabbath will allow you to live a more Biblical life. It also has some surprising benefits in this fast paced modern world. Here are six reasons to keep the Sabbath in today’s world.

It lets you focus on God instead of squeezing Him into a busy schedule.

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If you are like most people, you have a pretty busy schedule. You likely work long hours during the day and try to fit necessities such as grocery shopping, cleaning the house and doing laundry into a few hours after you get home from your job. In those same hours, you are trying to cook dinner, spend time with friends or family and relax a little. Given how little time you have during the week, your weekends are likely packed as well as you try to take advantage of those two work-free days. As a result, God is often put on the backburner and squeezed into the few free moments that crop up between cooking dinner and driving the kids to soccer practice. Keeping the Sabbath allows you to make God the focus of an entire day rather than trying to fit Him in around endless errands and chores that somehow seem more important in the moment.

It can help you reconnect with friends and family.

For all the time and energy most people spend trying to connect with their friends and family, some people actually get very little return on that investment. They race from meeting with one friend to having dinner with a family member. They spend half the time they are with one person keeping an eye on the clock so that they are not late for a meeting with a different friend. This means that they never really get to connect with their friends and family. Instead, they are always watching the clock.

Keeping the Sabbath means that there is nothing to do but connect with God and those close to you. You have no errands to run or work to do, so you can enjoy the time you spend with your friends and family. There is nothing else to distract you or draw your attention away from those important bonds.

You might be more focused during week.

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How much time do you think you waste in a week? If you are like most people, your answer will probably be “not much.” If you really think about it though, you actually likely waste a great deal of time each day. You spend 10 minutes after breakfast scrolling through Facebook. You have to stay half an hour extra at work to get your report written because you took an extra-long lunch hour that involved playing several levels of mahjong on your computer. You watched half an episode of a reality TV show even though you had no interest in it. This all adds up to a lot of wasted time, much of which people try to make up on weekends. When you keep the Sabbath, though, you have six days with which to get things done, not seven. This forces you to be more productive during the week and really use your time wisely. It is a tricky adjustment to make, but it will make you more productive all week.

It forces you to slow down.

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If you are like most people, you are always on the go. You are running from work to various errands during the week, and even your “relaxing” weekends are jam packed with things to do. You are running from lunch with a friend to Bible study to dinner with your parents. If you have children, you are likely facilitating them in doing the same thing. You are probably driving them from piano practice to a soccer game and then to a friend’s house for a sleep over that night. From dawn until dusk, you are constantly on the go. As a result of this daily chaos, many people forget the value of stillness. Keeping the Sabbath forces a person to be still and to rest. You have to slow down, stop and take a breath. While many people would see this as wasted time, such moments of stillness are essential to avoiding burnout and mental or spiritual exhaustion.

You are reintroduced to the idea of self-imposed limits.

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Most of the limits you probably deal with in your daily life are externally imposed. You cannot get anything else done in one day because there are not enough hours. You cannot buy anything else because you cannot spend any more money. Even entertainment has become more or less limitless. Binge watching TV shows, for example, has become popular because no one enforces self-imposed limitations. Instead, you watch the show until you have finished it.

Keeping the Sabbath is not something that is an externally imposed limit. There is no one standing outside your door telling you “no, you cannot go do work today.” You have to decide for yourself that you will keep the Sabbath, and you are responsible for enforcing it in your own life. Regaining this sort of self-control will only aid you in other areas of your life. It will also help you remember that there can be too much of a good thing.