New Hope Calendar

Searching for Eden
Understanding and navigating our culture’s cries for life
Distorted Spirituality: Living without limits

What are the costs of trying to keep up with the noise & busyness?
• Loss of identity
• Loss of intelligence
• Loss of intimacy

Embracing our limits through silence & sabbath
“When God called Israel out of Egypt, he affirmed they were sacred human beings made in his image. He then showed them how to live according to their God-given nature. In effect, God said, ‘It may feel awkward at first, but as a fish is created to live in water, I created you to live according to this design.’”
-Peter Scazzero in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

“Remember to dedicate the Sabbath day: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. You must not do any work – you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the foreigner who is within your gates. For the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.”
-Exodus 20:8-11

What is a Sabbath?
• From the Hebrew word that means “to cease, to stop working”
• A specific day (Romans 14 gives freedom regarding which day)
• Not just a day…an overriding life principle of rhythm & rest

What benefits will you receive from Sabbath?
o Recognize & embrace your limits & God’s limitlessness
o Know when to say “yes” and when to say “no”
o Build up needed reserves
o Increase in ability to be fully present with others, with tasks, & with God

How do you start?
Count the cost
– We don’t rest because all the work is done, we rest because we were designed to do so…
– “But the news about Him spread even more, and large crowds would come together to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. Yet He often withdrew to deserted places and prayed.”
-Luke 5:15-16

Develop a Sabbath Formation Team
• Keep it small
– Director
– Companion

Start small & build as you go
• Experiment
– Choose a day in the next month
– Try something structured
– Try something unstructured