“A golden light fell on them from the left. He thought it was the sun. He turned and saw, pacing beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion...It was from the Lion that the light came. No one ever saw anything more terrible or beautiful.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Horse and his Boy
I had the privilege and opportunity to take a three month sabbatical this past summer. It was a beautifully terrible experience! This may sound like a funny description but it's the best way to express the overwhelming experience of unhurried, extended, undistracted time with Jesus. If you’re a Narnia fan like me, you have read, and reread, the passages by Lewis that describe some of the intimate moments the characters have with Aslan. Like this one quoted above from The Horse and His Boy, Lewis captures the beauty, wonder and joy mingled with terror, wildness, power and disorientation of intimacy with God. Another example is a line in The Last Battle from a character named Emeth, who was a foreigner who had never heard of Aslan (the Jesus figure) until he met him at the end of his life. He says, “I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog” about his encounter with Aslan. This is what sabbatical so uniquely provided; space and time to encounter Jesus in a way that “weakens me like a wound” and reminded me of “the marvel of marvels, that he calls me Beloved!”
Rhythms of Rest and Running on Fumes
My wife, Kate, and I have a fun tradition when we’re on a road trip as a family. I get in the zone and start driving. I’ve got my own internal goal set of how often we should stop and how quickly we should arrive. This goal orientation to our road trip, along with the other normal distractions that come with having the whole family in the car, creates a tunnel vision in which I often ignore the gas gauge. Once, Kate or I realize that we are running low on gas, my response is to see it as a challenge. “Ooo, I wonder how close to empty we can get before I actually have to get off to get gas?” runs through my head. Of course, I’m the only one of us who finds this fun. For Kate, it’s actually anxiety producing and anger inducing… and for my kids, who wish we had stopped at least a few exits earlier for the bathroom, it’s just annoying.
Why are we tempted to run right up to our limits? What drives us toward the tunnel vision that ignores how much gas is in the tank?
When I first started planning for a sabbatical, it truly was timing and best practices. Wiser people have emphasized the importance of a sabbatical every 7 years or so. We emphasize Sabbath and sabbatical to the hundreds of ministry leaders we work with on a regular basis. At ServingLeaders, we believe that our faithfulness to Sabbath is one of the key litmus indicators of spiritual health and ministry stewardship. So, yes, its time for a sabbatical and I planned one, without feeling particularly exhausted or in desperate need for rest. The key question: Was I not feeling tired or desperate for sabbatical because I didn’t need it or because I had trained myself to ignore that gauge and keep my foot firmly pressed on the gas?
By the time I rounded the corner, about 9 months later, on my planned sabbatical, I was running on fumes. I would have been happy to ignore it had I not had plans to take this sabbatical which caused me to really notice that the gauge was compromisingly low. Had I not had the planned sabbatical lined up, I probably would have pressed forward just assuming that I can simply push through the exhaustion. Like an ignorant driver, who’s focused on the destination and isn’t checking any of the instruments in the car, I would have just kept driving over the speed limit and getting closer to “E” without paying much attention.
Why do we let ourselves get into this position? More than that, why do some of us find it to be a fun game; an engaging challenge to see how fast we can go over our limit to see how long we can go beyond our limit?
As my wife likes to remind me when I’m driving close to empty… “this is a fool’s game!” In our lives, we’re surrounded by other “fools” playing the same type of game. Actually, for most of us, even and especially in ministry, there are others around us that cheer us on as we push beyond our limits. There’s a certain pride and a special kind of selfishness that drives us beyond our limits. And there’s some hidden idols, subconsciously operating in our hearts; idols that motivate our desire to be limitless. Maybe we desire to prove to ourselves or others our worth, value, and impact.
For many of us in ministry leadership, there is a deeper idolatry of ministry fruitfulness, taking ourselves beyond our limits in the name of sacrificially following Jesus. Without giving any consideration of the stewardship to which Jesus calls us. God does call us to be living sacrifices but I don’t believe that means ignoring the stewardship of our calling. It's actually the reverse. Living in surrender to the supremacy of Christ means repenting from our idols of supernatural productivity, ministry fruitfulness and limitless service. Stewarding our lives and ministries by God’s well-designed plans.
When we are not good stewards, we head down a path of burnout and vulnerability to failure. Soul fatigue leads to lapses in moral judgment. We quickly become bitter and distant to Jesus and to those we serve. Without even realizing it, we can slip into an “older brother” dutifulness which steals our joy and chokes out the fruit we seek to control. (Lk 15:28-30) In ministry leadership, soul fatigue can lead to “mission fatigue,” a questioning of our calling, and mission fatigue can become relationship fatigue. This fatigue not only affects relationships with the people that are hard to work with or be with, but it impacts relationships with the ones you love to most, those closest to you, even and especially God.
So Why a Sabbatical? And Why Now?
Because we’re tired? Yes and no. Ideally a sabbatical would be the culmination of healthy rhythms of work and rest in our life. Sabbatical serves both as a work/rest pattern reset and in many ways, hopefully, feels like the next part of a long range rhythm of work and rest for the sake of worship and stewardship within our life and ministry.
The big why of sabbatical, first and foremost, is the question of why Sabbath at all. Sabbath is a resting but it's a resting-with-a-purpose or “active-resting”. In the creation account, each day involved a moment of reflection, presence and delight at the end. When God rested on the seventh day it was to cease and to delight! This is the rhythm of work, rest, reflection and delight that is patterned for us by God in the creation account. The goal of Sabbath is a full day of rest, reflection and delight in God’s presence. It is in this pattern, this rhythm of our days, weeks and years that we see the fullness of how we live our whole lives as living sacrifices of worship. We know that a life of worship involves surrender to God’s call in whatever way we are called to follow him and serve. If that is true then Sabbath is the other side of that life of worship. A calling to unhurried presence with the Lord through patient reflection and delight!
If you’ve heard the quote "Your religion is what you do with your solitude," attributed to Archbishop William Temple, you could reverse it to say “hurry sickness” is a spiritual sickness that Sabbath is the remedy for. Sabbath is, and I’ll guess has always been, counter-cultural. And unfortunately “hurry sickness” can look really good on the outside and so it becomes a primary strategy for hiding from solitude.
Slowing down for unhurried presence and unveiled (naked) delight is a dangerous proposition to our controlling pride and our hidden shame. This is why, especially for busy ministry leaders, Sabbath is so easy to dismiss and a sabbatical feels dangerous.
Sabbatical is Not the Easy Path
Sabbatical was more difficult than I expected. It was really hard to wrap up and let go of some of my work… especially the things that I had deceived myself into thinking I was indispensable in. We are really good at self-deception. I had been telling myself and others that it was going to be great and that I can delegate everything and everything will transition smoothly. But even in the transition to my sabbatical I was surprised by my temptation to “make it happen” .. to have a “successful” sabbatical. To force my heart further along as if the sabbatical was another job I had of forcing myself to rest and heal and forcing God to be present to me the way I wanted. To stop striving and practice surrender was an important
What I learned was that Detoxing from hurry is painfully essential. To experience true Sabbath in our work and rest, we must resist the “tyranny of the urgent.” In a world of constant notifications, news, and noise, we have to fight for solitude and sacred space — to listen for the Lord’s voice and follow the Spirit’s leading.
I also learned that our hearts (my heart) need more time and space than we feel like we can afford, to open up and be heard. The deeper places of our souls are rarely accessed without extended silence and intentional, Spirit-led reflection. And when they are accessed, they need to be processed slowly and safely — before our loving Savior and alongside trusted friends or wise counselors.
A lot of my sabbatical felt chaotic and raw. A lot of emotions came flooding in without a clear sense of relief. Through my coach and a guided retreat, I was able to slow down and get curious about these raw, newly accessed emotions; to ask questions of myself about what is beneath my desire to control and force change in my heart. I was able to ask the Lord for his presence and comfort in the chaos and patiently wait with him.
And finally, the Lord made it painfully obvious that transformation comes in God’s timing. The renewal we long for happens not by force of will or by the perfect formula of devotions but by “steeping in” the gracious embrace of Jesus as he applies the balm of the gospel to the most tender, hidden parts of our lives — even those we’d rather keep untouched. The Spirit moves in his own perfect timing bringing care, healing, and hope.
As I returned to work, I had two concerns. First, the rest I experienced that cleared out much of the hurry-sickness was so refreshing that I worried about how quickly I would allow that same hurry-sickness to creep in. The moments of intimacy with the Lord that this time had afforded me were so sweet, that I reentered afraid that they would get squeezed out in the “real world.” Second, I felt insecure about reentering “unfinished;” incomplete and desperate for more transformational time with Jesus. As if a sabbatical is the only place and space that “real” transformation can take place.
Now six month post-sabbatical, I can see that a sabbatical wasn’t a stand-alone time that I now have to feel shut out from, but it was, and is, a marker of God’s faithfulness and delight that will mark and mold the rest of my days in the ordinary rhythms of work and rest. How he met me during my sabbatical has brought fresh dependence, focus and delight. The truth is I will continue to struggle with hurry sickness and will always be a work in progress, but my time in sabbatical allowed me to see myself, in a fresh way, through His eyes as His beloved, even as the mess that I am. As His beloved, work has become “sabbath work” (the topic of “sabbath work” needs to be a whole other blog post) and it has made the weekly times of sabbath rest a place of hope and joy that bring deeper rest and expand my capacity for following Him in my calling.