The Game Changer

Brent and I just experienced a blissful evening like no other. Not because anything special happened, but also because something very special happened. 

But first, a little backstory. After reading The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, I felt challenged and inspired to revisit what it means when God commands us to remember the Sabbath. To keep it holy.

As it turns out, we’ve been doing it wrong.

Growing up, I always viewed Sunday as the Sabbath. To me it was the last day of the week before a new school week started. That was the day my family dressed up, attended church (I could barely keep my eyes open I was so exhausted all the time), ate a home-cooked meal, napped on the couch, and then went back to church that night for part deux.

I carried this into my adult life, yet Sunday has always felt anything but restful. Waking up to an alarm clock to get up for church always jars me out of my already exhausted state of sleep. I’ve yet to recover from the draining work week and the frantic Saturday trying to get caught up on laundry, meal planning, errands, and yard work. Mix that with cranky children who have been shaken from sleep before their bodies are done resting, and a sprint to make it out of the door on time, my blood pressure is usually a little higher than normal. I don’t say this as a complaint in the slightest. I love worshipping at church and don’t see all of the above as a reason not to go. I’m simply illustrating how hectic a Sunday morning feels. Those of you with children get it!

After church, I spend the majority of my day surfing on an undercurrent of the Sunday Scaries and never really enter into a state of rest as I try to finish up any remaining items that need to be completed before Monday hits.  

Sunday has mostly felt like anything.but.rest.

During our weekend getaway, Brent and I decided to shake things up. Instead of thinking of Sunday as the last day of the week, we are going to think of it as the first. I mean, even our calendar confirms Sunday is the first day of the week. This way, we are starting our week calibrating our hearts towards Him instead of limping in at the end of the week asking God to somehow revive us. I want to show up already rested and not just give him my leftovers from a week that has barbequed my mind and body.

With that premise, that makes Saturday the last day of the week. And on the seventh day, God rested. As should we. 

But what we discovered during our simply incredible evening (I’ll get there, just hang on!) is that our bodies are not the only things that need rest. Our brains do as well. And by a restful brain, I mean shutting it down from the constant. noise. of. technology.

Here’s what we are going to try. It might not always work seamlessly, and periodically, we might have to move our Sabbath to another day, but this is at least a jumping off point: from 6 p.m. on Friday night until 6 p.m. on Saturday night, we are going to intentionally set aside 24 hours of rest: mind, body, and soul. It will start by powering down all of the kids’ electronics. My phone will be put into “downtime” mode which means nothing on my phone can be accessed except the phone and text function, for communicative purposes. Since Brent is on call at his place of employment 24/7 (yes, he’s been woken up at 3 a.m. on numerous occasions to fix problems that have risen), he has to keep his phone operating. But he is intentionally going to leave it in the bedroom on the nightstand and only check it periodically. Our family won’t be using computers or watching TV during this time either. Bye, bye screen and slave-driving impulse to check on something or cross another thing off the list.

Once everything is powered down and collected, we will share a Friday night meal at the dining room table, preferably something we can make together in the kitchen, followed by family time either reading together on the couch, playing a game, putting together a puzzle, or having friends over to spend time in community. 

Saturdays are for sleeping in, intentionally spending quality time with God, spending time with our family, with friends, and doing anything that is life-giving and soul replenishing. This is the time that we can lean into our hobbies that we never feel we have time for! The point is to do things that we enjoy that helps us restore ourselves and refresh our minds and bodies for the upcoming work week. Not deplete them.

We are not allowed to do laundry, clean the house, complete yard work, or run errands. All of that stuff can wait for the first day of the week – Sunday, after church. After we have recharged our bodies, realigned our hearts toward God, we will be ready to hit the ground running.

My absolute favorite part of this whole thing is deleting technology from our lives during that 24-hour period. I truly don’t think the Sabbath experience will be the same without it. I truly don’t believe that our bodies and minds can enter a complete state of rest when we are plugged into the world through a device in our hands, whiplashing our brains around every time there is a notification, every time a television show scene changes angles, every time we give into an impulse to check on something or look something up.

Brent and I tried a soft start last Saturday night after we returned home from vacation just to get a taste of what it would be like. Here’s how it went: At 5 p.m., I put my phone into downtime mode and we collected all the ipads and gaming systems from our kids to store in a box on a shelf. They chose to go outside to play with friends. Win!

Thinking I could finally exhale, I jumped in the shower. But what I was left with was my mind racing, thinking about all the things I needed to do – respond to an unread email, meal plan and place my Walmart order, Marco Polo someone back, check on my Etsy shop, look a couple things up on Amazon and make a decision about what I was going to purchase.

It was rapid fire.

But then I realized I couldn’t do ANY of those things. And even more so, I realized that THIS IS HOW MY BRAIN IS CONSTANTLY FUNCTIONING DURING WAKING HOURS!  

No wonder I’m exhausted. 

Then something miraculous happened: the storm in my mind slowly turned into a drizzle, and I could physically feel my brain powering down from the slave-driving to-do list, simply because my subconscious started to understand that there was nothing to be done about it any way. In turn, my body started to relax.

After my shower, I asked Brent if he wanted to just sit on the couch and hang out. I went to grab the Bluetooth speaker so we could put on some tunes in the background…but alas! I forgot I can’t access Spotify when my phone is in downtime. But, necessity is the mother of invention, and I had the bright idea of pulling out our old record player from the guest room. We spent the next hour listening to The Lumineers and Bastille, sipping on wine and just being together. Neither one of us grabbed our phones to look something up or respond to a text or notification. Our phones weren’t even in the room. I felt like I was truly savoring life.

As this past week has rolled on and I become even more tired with each passing day, I find myself longing for the Sabbath that will take place this weekend. To return to a place of physical rest, but more importantly, mental rest. Yes. I’m looking forward to putting my phone in downtime mode. In fact, I’m desperate for it.

And what if I don’t get everything done on my to-do list before each Monday rolls around? That’s something I’m willing to live with. God knew we needed true soul rest. He commands it. I’m finally at a place where I’m willing to intentionally fall into it, and I think my life as well as my family’s will be all the better for it.