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Stress, Rest, and Sabbath

By Christian Welker

A new semester has begun with all the stresses and anxieties we have come to expect, from the first-year students who are still learning about college life to the seniors who are starting their long sprint to the finish line, looking so near and yet so far at the same time.

Rest assured, this will not be a “Just give it to God” article. The Sparrows and Lillies don’t have a German test in an hour or a concert a week from today.

I firmly believe that the Lord is and always will be the ultimate source of peace for his children. However, I’m also willing to admit that in places like this, it often feels as though the very act of giving up your stress to God is a requirement that brings its own anxieties. It’s hard to lean on the peace of God while counting how many Around the Tables you still need to go to, or dragging yourself out of bed to get to church on the one day you would have been able to sleep in more, or even sitting in Chapel, worrying about the test you have during your 12 o’clock class that you really need to study more for.

At a place like Houghton, sometimes it can feel like trying to get the peace of God only helps drive it away. Professors talk about how students need to take Sabbath more and then give you 60 pages of reading and a paper to do before Monday morning. However, something I learned in my time at Houghton is that God doesn’t limit rest to going to church on Sunday and then sitting around doing nothing in the afternoon. Rest and Sabbath can be wherever you can fit it into your schedule. A Sabbath for me is Tuesday evening Nerf Nights in Roth. On the surface, it doesn’t seem relaxing to charge up three flights of stairs, blast random guys with toy guns, and then run back down to start over. However, it’s a time when I can put due dates and projects to the side for an hour or two and enjoy fellowship with my hallmates. We don’t tend to think of times like that as Sabbath because it doesn’t feel like God is there. Yet it provides the mental rest that we need as we continue on in the week.

These small moments are Sabbaths that students can take wherever and whenever they can. It doesn’t have to be weekly. If something needs to be done by Wednesday morning, you would be much more likely to find me in a study room than the trenches of Roth’s first floor, but having those times that you can set aside for your physical and mental health is important. Without times like these, you run the risk of burning yourself out or making yourself sick right before the big paper is due.

Is it good to rest on a Sunday after church? Of course! But it’s also good to take some time on Wednesday to watch your favorite TV show, spend Friday evening playing games with friends, or even just lay down on a bed or couch and relax between one class and the next. It may not add up to a whole day of rest, but taking a Sabbath where you can will help as we continue throughout the semester.

Rest can be found in the Chapel, but it can also be found in study rooms or dorm rooms, in the woods or on the quad, or anywhere where a student closes their textbook for a few minutes and thinks:

“You know what? I earned a break, and I’m going to lay down.” ★

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Hustle Culture has No Place Here

By Abigail Weeks

As I wrote this during our spring break that happens during the winter—Why don’t we call it winter break?—I found myself struggling to rest. I’ve worked tirelessly for my entire undergrad career, and now I face my last semester and I have yet again overloaded my schedule. Factoring in extracurriculars and accelerated half-semester classes, the workload comes to around an ill-advised 20 credits. And for what? I have plenty of reasons with which I won’t bore you. I could’ve taken the easy route, as I only needed six credits toward my major to graduate. Yet, like so many others, I must hold captive any spare time in my schedule and fill it with something “productive”.  

Why do so many of us as young adults feel the need to push and shove until we’re all burnt out, drowning in our school work? When was the last time you were able to truly rest outside of a scheduled academic break? Of course, there are things required of us to accomplish for our academic careers, but I’m mostly talking about extracurriculars.

As students living in a hustle culture, many of us have felt the need to always keep busy. I personally have never made it a priority to rest. I’ve been working every summer since I was 16, and I have always found a way to do more work over academic breaks. Until coming to Houghton, I didn’t think Christians really honored the Sabbath. It was never something instilled in me to do growing up, despite coming from a Christian background. So if this thing that I’m supposed to do—that we are all supposed to do—as Christians is in the Bible, why is it so hard?

Here’s a quick answer: we have let culture influence what is Good and Holy. The Sabbath day is a gift to us to restore, recollect, and reflect. It allows us to quiet our hearts and rest in God. Why do we ignore it? Furthermore, why is it so hard for us to take a few hours to rest, let alone an entire day? 

I think there is something inside of us that is afraid of being lazy. It measures our self-worth in the number of things we accomplish and the amount of times we tell people we are “too busy”. After all, we are told to do whatever we do with all our hearts, right? If I’m not being productive in some capacity, I’m automatically lazy, which to me feels much greater a sin than not resting at all. Oh, what a great lie this is. Overworking myself to the point of burnout doesn’t make me special. It doesn’t make me better than my neighbor. It doesn’t set me apart, and by not honoring a time to slow down, I end up dishonoring my Creator.

In a way, this drive to overbook ourselves has a tendency to lead us to ignore the people right in front of us and divert our attention inward. How many times have you not checked in with someone because you’re running late or because you’re thinking about how much time a 30-second interaction will eat up the little space you have left in your schedule? I know I am guilty of this. Perhaps the funniest thing about this is that all of this self-serving yet harmful behavior occurs in a Christian environment that is supposed to go against the grain of secular culture. So, what then is Christian about an environment that leaves us unrested and utterly burnt out? Should we blame the “system” and play the victim for our inability to rest? I think not. We have the ability to evaluate where we stand in our lives. It may come as a shock to the overachievers out there, but we are allowed to say no to things and still love God with all of our minds and hearts and beings, and love others, too. Loving others does not mean saying yes to every opportunity. Serving others becomes an impossible task if we are consumed by our own to-do lists.

The Bible’s teaching that we must boast in Christ alone and not in our works is a pretty stark contrast to academia’s view that without our work, we are nothing. We must learn to look to God for our source of meaning, not our lengthy to-do lists and activities. When we learn where our true value comes from, it will be so much easier for us to separate ourselves from the hustle of our lives. If you truly feel called to an opportunity, we have a faithful God that can see you through, but if saying yes to a good opportunity jeopardizes your well-being, it isn’t really good, is it? Saying no to someone or something does not make you sinful; it is saying no to God that does.

Next time you find yourself with some space in your schedule, consider honoring God through resting so you can have more strength to serve God and serve His kingdom. ★

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Students and the Recognition of the Sabbath

Every Sabbath, I ask myself this: to do homework or not to do homework – that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to conquer the papers and projects of outrageous overload, or to relax with my weekly Sabbath away from the tsunami of stress.

saffabthEven here at a Christian college, I notice that many students spend their Sabbaths cramped up in their room, studying for that big exam they have the next day or starting that eight page paper that they have been avoiding like the plague. Where is their Sabbath day of rest in this? What has happened to the day that God has set aside as holy? Exodus 31 tells us, “You must keep the Sabbath day, for it is a holy day for you,” and what joy we feel when we observe the Sabbath!
The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). We are human, and because of that, we have limitations. We cannot run continuously without ever getting exhausted; heck, I can barely run a mile without breathing like Darth Vader and getting side stickers. For us humans, rest is a necessity. In 2011, full-time college students studied an average of 15 hours a week, 30% got less than 6 hours a sleep a night, and 25% worked 20 hours or more a week (National Survey). These statistics alone show that college students overwork, under-sleep, and over-commit themselves.
But because God cares for us and loves us, He gives us a model to follow. That model is himself. On the third page of my Bible, I read, “On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation” (Genesis 2:2-3). Now, I can’t imagine that God was exhausted and that He actually needed an entire day to rest. But God set an example so that His children could emulate Him. So why don’t we? Why do we fill the Sabbath with work, homework, and constant business?
This is something that we as Christians should change. We should weekly take the Sabbath. So what is one to do on the Sabbath? Are they just supposed to lie in bed all day sleeping? Well, there is a difference between being lazy and resting. I believe Barbara Brown Taylor, a priest, professor, and theologian, says it best in her book, An Altar in the World, when she describes the Sabbath as “a day of saying no. A day of spiritual growth. A day of not doing, but being.” I don’t think the question is so much, “If I do this, does that count as working on the Sabbath?” as much as “How can I rest today and enjoy this day that God has blessed me with and has made holy?”
That being said, I’m not going to be like the Pharisees, defining what can and cannot be done on the Sabbath, but know that the Sabbath looks different for each person. Sleep in. Go to Church. Spend time with God: through prayer, worship, his word. Journal. Spend time relaxing, giving your mind a break from all of the studying and paper writing. Fellowship with friends, enjoying their company. Go on a hike. Read a book. Take a nap. The options are endless.
But there is one thing that is important, and that is to “Be still and know that God is God” (Psalm 46:10).
And I admit, it is hard to obey the Sabbath. This past Sunday, I battled with whether to do homework or not. With two papers and readings that were due on Monday alone, taking an entire day off from homework sounded unreasonable. But I tell you what, I kept the Sabbath. I spent time with God, I worshipped, I watched a movie, read a book, hung out with friends, and ended the night celebrating a friend’s birthday. And throughout it all, I had peace. When Monday morning rolled around, God gave me the strength to rise out of bed, and blessed me with an abundant amount of time to work on homework. And I am still at peace, thankful once again, that I obeyed my Father, rested, and took the Sabbath.
I believe Christian author Mark Buchanan sums up the Sabbath the best, saying, “Sabbath imparts the rest of God – physical, mental, spiritual rest, but also the rest of God – the things of God’s nature and presence we miss in our busyness.”
For these very reasons, every Sunday I say to myself: To observe Sabbath or to observe Sabbath. There is no question.