Why We Decided to Honor a Day of Rest as Christians

One of the greatest gifts our family was introduced to was the gift of rest. It’s something we never prioritized and honestly we didn’t see how we would even have time for it - but friends, let me tell you this - it is a GAME CHANGER.

Whenever I share about observing a day of rest, it’s often assumed that our family is Jewish (and we are not).  We are Christians who choose to honor the day of rest (also known as Sabbath). Now, it’s worth noting that at no point during this series am I trying to push our family’s beliefs on you - I am simply sharing this life changing realization in hopes that it blesses you in one way or another. 

The things that have come out of us choosing to rest one day a week and spend time together as a family have produced many family traditions and activities that you may find helpful or encouraging in your own life! 

Last year, around this time, I began feeling convicted on holiday celebrations and what God was pulling me towards. 

We had recently discovered the kids series called Superbook. (If you have kids, it is one of the best things you could incorporate into whatever screen time they get!) Superbook is an animated TV show that breaks down different stories of the Bible in each episode. It’s 100% worth it to watch.  I believe it streams on Amazon Prime for the first couple of seasons - but, I highly recommend investing in buying the DVD’s if you can find them on the market.

Now, before diving in - I should preface this with a little bit of my backstory:

When I was growing up, we went to church, played around in Sunday school and came home. The idea of “church will teach you God” and “school will teach you what you need to know” ran deep in our home because both of my parents were successful working parents outside of the home.  They did the best they could with what they knew at the time and had no clue we weren’t learning much of anything at Sunday school. 

At one point, there was corruption within our church and we stopped going all together. So as an adult, I still hardly knew any stories of the Bible. 

Jason, on the other hand, was raised with a pastor for a granddaddy and he knew the Bible stories like the back of his hand! He discipled me and the kids as we all grew in our faith.

Our family was watching the episode on the 10 commandments and I didn’t know all of them. If you’re in that same boat - here they are in a nutshell:

Keep the Sabbath Day holy was the one that lingered with me. I’m not Jewish… does that apply to my life?

As we talked about it together with our children - they asked us if we are supposed to live by these commandments still today. 

Well, not killing someone… yes.

Not coveting your neighbor's wife… yes. 

Not lying… yes. 

As we went through the list, keeping the Sabbath day holy was the only one we were stumped on. Do people actually do this?!

Spoiler alert - they do. And let me tell you this - since we began our journey with honoring the Sabbath each week - our entire family structure and dynamic has transformed. 

Intentionally taking a day of rest - even with the ridiculous amount of “things” we have to accomplish - is exactly what our family needed. 

And if you’re like me and are thinking - how the heck am I going to keep up with everything I have to do as a mother and business owner AND take a day of rest - remember that God created the world in 6 days and on the 7th, He rested. He didn’t rest because He needed to - He rested as an example for us to mirror what WE need to do. 

I encourage you to really dive into our series on the weekly day of rest, and see how our family incorporates an intentional day of rest and worship into our busy lives via our Sabbath Series.