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Exodus chapter 20 says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. For in six days the Lord God made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Why did God rest on the seventh day? Was he tired and worn out after creating the earth and the solar system? Did God maybe bite off a little bit more than he could chew and he needed to regroup after all that creating? Of course not.
God gave us an example to follow. We all know that having one day a rest in seven is beneficial to our health, but most of us struggle with the execution. Why do you think that is? Well, of course, part of it is cultural, but part of it is based in fear. It's fear of missing out, FOMO. We feel that if we don't get that car or that house or live in a particular neighborhood, we'll be missing out on something great.
Well, I would suggest that by ignoring the Sabbath command and putting our nose to the grindstone, so to speak, seven days a week, is causing us to miss out on something far greater than a perfectly manicured lawn. We've got to stop looking at the Sabbath command as a rule to follow, as something we've got to do in order to be in good standing with God, or as something we have to add to our already full to-do lists.
I would suggest that we view the Sabbath day as an opportunity to become more whole and fulfilled. We need a paradigm shift. I want to introduce you to a new way of looking at the Sabbath that I think you're going to find very useful. Let's talk about it.
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Welcome to the Christian Healthy Lifestyle Podcast where I help you navigate natural health so you can stay out of the doctor's office, age gracefully, and live a more purpose-driven life. I'm your host, David Sandstrom. So what's up with this command to get all of our work done in six days and rest on the seventh? Why did God rest on the seventh day and give us a command to do the same? God was simply behaving in a manner that's consistent with His created order.
and he's encouraging us to do the same thing. You see, when we align our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body, it's like listening to a beautiful symphony. There's harmony and there's order. Now for you, the natural nation, the regular listeners to this show, this is going to be a review. But if you're new to the show, I want to explain this in detail. God is our heavenly father. And like any loving parent,
He wants what's best for his children. But unlike earthly parents, God is omniscient. He knows everything. He knows the outcome our choices are going to have before we make them. And we know that God is trustworthy. So we can conclude that when God tells us to do something or He gives us an admonition, He has our best interest in mind. And when He gives us a prohibition or He tells us to avoid something,
It's for our protection. When he tells us to do something, he's saying, help yourself. And when he tells us to avoid something, he's saying, don't harm yourself. When we read the scriptures through this lens, the Bible becomes a plethora of useful information that's all health promoting. When we surrender to God's way of doing things, we end up reducing our total body load. When we do that,
We'll automatically be adding in health enhancing factors and eliminating health blocking factors. This is how we build health margin. God's command to do all our work in six days fits right into this way of looking at things. If we observe one day arrest in seven, we're giving ourselves a gift. We're adding in a health enhancing lifestyle factor and we're eliminating a health blocking factor
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by avoiding burnout. Not only that, the command to observe a Sabbath day is not a restriction against work. It's a positive instruction to be pursued. Exodus chapter 20, starting in verse 8, we find this, 6 days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall not do any work. Now, God isn't saying we can't do any work on the Sabbath.
When he says, it, should not do any work, he's describing the outcome of observing the Sabbath. He's not giving us a restriction. He's giving us proactive guidance. Do see the difference? The Sabbath command to do all our work in six days is prescriptive advice, not a restrictive limitation. It's a totally different way looking at it. Now, Jesus took this one on on many occasions by choosing
heal people on the Sabbath right in front of the Pharisees. In one passage in Mark chapter 2, Jesus and disciples are on a journey and passing through a grain field and they were foraging for heads of grain to eat because they were hungry. And the Pharisees criticized them for quote, working on the Sabbath. Jesus' response was, you guys got this thing all backwards. The Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Basically, he was asking them, is the Sabbath serving you or are you a slave to it? The Sabbath was intended to be a gift, a day of rest and restoration for humanity. The religious leaders of the time had turned it into a burden by adding so many complex restrictions that the rest became more stressful than the work. If you could see the real purpose of the Sabbath and stop focusing on the rule keeping.
I believe we'd be far more motivated to observe the Sabbath on regular basis, not in a legalistic fashion, but as a gift that we can give ourselves for the renewal and strengthening of our spirit, mind and body. Instead of thinking of the Sabbath in a legalistic fashion and focusing on the things we can't do, I suggest being more deliberate with our spare time and focus more on doing the things that recharge our batteries.
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I want to talk about a study that was recently published in the journal Human Relations. These researchers found that engaging in a hobby in a meaningful way increased people's productivity, satisfaction, and happiness with their work, not just their free time. The study is groundbreaking because most of what's been taught in work-life balance separates our personal life and our work life. They keep it as two separate categories. This study says,
No, you really can't separate the two. A person's personal life affects their work life, and their work life affects their personal life. Does that sound familiar? That's the way I look at holistic health. Since we're three-part beings, we are a spirit, we have a mind, and we live in a body, we can't afford to ignore any part of who and what we are, because what affects one part of our being will, by necessity, alter the others for good or bad.
One of the authors of this study was quoted as saying, this is a reminder that people aren't just employees, they're whole individuals. And supporting their personal growth outside of work can have a positive impact inside the workplace too. Another one of the authors of the study said, the results show that our hobbies and personal growth outside of work aren't separate from who we are at work. What we learn and experience in our free time can make us better.
more fulfilled employees. Now the study lasted five weeks and the researchers had almost 200 working adults watch a short video where they were guided to make a personal plan about how to approach their hobby in a more meaningful way. They called it leisure crafting. They discouraged people from doing things like binge watching on Netflix. Long sessions of screen time have a mind-numbing effect.
The researchers in the study didn't just tell people to take up a hobby. They encouraged them to be more intentional with their hobbies. Now the average age of the participants was 46 years old and specifically they were asked to try to do their hobby in a way that helped them feel more in control of their lives. This could be by setting their own goals or doing their hobby in a new way that fit into their lifestyle where they were learning new things through their hobby.
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and feeling more connected by doing their hobby with other people or asking for feedback from others. They were instructed to carve out time and put it their calendars and to set small achievable goals to accomplish. This helped people to feel more in control of their lives and it fanned the flames of creativity, joy, meaning, and purpose.
purpose spread into not only their personal lives, but their work lives as well. Now I want to share a quick story of how I did this in my own life without really understanding any these principles. When I was a young man in my twenties, my brother and I were into racing boats. We would make modifications to the engine and the boat set up to maximize the acceleration and the top speed of the boat. We would go to great lengths to tweak another one mile per hour out of the boat.
We'd try different things and experiment. Sometimes those things worked and sometimes they didn't. But when we could coax another mile or two per hour out of the boat, we got a tremendous sense of satisfaction. And there were a lot of small wins along the way. It was relational. We had friends that were pursuing the same thing. Together, we'd talk about our ideas and then we'd go implement them. We'd encourage one another along the way.
There was also something very gratifying about looking at a bunch of engine parts sitting on a workbench and making modifications to those parts and then putting the engine back together and starting it up. When we built that engine and we put the engine back together, when we were ready to turn the key and hear the engine start, it was actually a real thrill for us. We would say, I want to hear this engine talk. And when it did, it was music to our ears. I remember.
for quite a few years, our goal was to hit 100 miles per hour. And when we finally did it, it was a real thrill. Not only the speed of going 100 miles an hour over the water, that's a thrill in itself, but reaching the goal of 100 miles an hour, that was even more thrilling for me. Now, we didn't know it at the time, but we were doing exactly what these researchers were pointing out in their study with hobbies and work-life balance. The lessons we were learning about goal setting and hard work
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produced a confidence in us that would ultimately spill over into many areas of our lives, including school, work, career, and marriage. The same is true with sports. This is one of the ways we live a more purpose-driven life. One of the components of the mission statement of this show that I touched on briefly in the last episode, episode number 205, is to help you live a more purpose-driven life. Everyone wants to be a part of something larger than themselves.
It's a God-given craving. But defining our purpose isn't easy. In my book, The Christian's Guide to Holistic Health, I devoted a whole chapter to purpose. There's a lot there. It's pretty complex. When it comes to purpose, there's layers to it. Our ultimate purpose as human beings, the reason why we have breath in our lungs, the reason why we're walking on this planet, is to be in a loving, connected relationship with God.
Jesus said in John chapter 17 verse 3, he was praying for us to God the Father. And he said this, and this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So we were all created by God to love him and be in a connected relationship with him and become more like him every day.
When we do, we bring Him glory by putting His majesty on display, by reflecting His image to a lost and dying world. That's our purpose. And when we're living a purpose-driven life, we'll have impact. Now, related to our purpose is our calling. Our calling is related to the desires of our hearts. God gives each and every one of us a unique combination of gifts, talents, abilities, and desires.
God wants us to walk through life with him. He wants to be our guide. And where God guides, he provides. God wants to set us up for success. He gives us gifts, talents, and abilities. But as we all know from looking at great athletes, those natural abilities need to be nurtured. We have a role to play. That's where our desires and our commitment to hard work comes in. So our purpose
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is the same for all human beings, but our calling is unique to us. So another thing to consider when we're trying to clarify what living a purpose-driven life looks like is our assignments. When I was a teenager, I worked for Wendy's. And at least back then, keeping the restrooms clean was a priority for all employees. But when I was cleaning the bathrooms, I never viewed myself as a janitor.
I viewed myself as a crucial team member that had an important contribution to make. So when my manager gave me an assignment like, go take out the trash or go mop the bathroom floor, I knew that assignment was temporary. It didn't define me. In the same fashion as adults, we all have assignments, but our assignments don't define us. For instance, raising children
is an assignment that's supposed to last about 18 or 20 years or so. After that, our children should be prepared to function as mature adults themselves. Our assignment is over then. We might be friends with our adult children, but the assignment of raising them is over. Another thing to consider is for most of us, our careers are usually assignments. I believe on rare occasions a few people have careers
where they're living out their callings. But for most of us, that's not the case. I've been an airline captain for many years, but I've always known that flying big jets for a living is a cool job and people love to hear stories about my flying experiences. But being an airline pilot is not who I am. When we're in an assignment, we've got to remember our identity, purpose, and callings. As followers of Jesus Christ,
Our identity is we're children of the Most High God. Our purpose is to be in loving relationships with Him and reflect His image accurately. Our calling is where our purpose and the God-given desires of our hearts are in harmony and we enjoy having a positive impact in the world. Our assignments are temporary. They can come and go. Our boss can give us an assignment
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but they can also take those assignments away. If we're not careful and we let our assignments become our identity, then we've given a person the ability to take our identity away. God gives us our identity. That's where our worth comes from. And that identity and worth can never be taken away. So how does all this tie into the Sabbath? It's all about creating an attitude that's willing to submit to God's way of doing things. When we do,
we experience a kind of harmony with God's created order and there's blessings attached to that. Those blessings are designed by God to produce more spiritual strength, more mental, emotional fortitude, and more physical vitality. When God tells us to do all our work in six days and then enjoy a Sabbath day or rest, He means it. Not because He wants to burden us with more rules, but because He's a lover of our souls.
and He wants what's best for us. Why wouldn't we submit to that? God's admonitions are not burdensome. Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. My encouragement to you is to stop getting sucked into the world's way of doing things, surrender to God's goodness, and adopt as many biblical healthy lifestyle practices as you can, and watch your joy, satisfaction,
and effectiveness all go to the next level. That's the way we should be looking at the Sabbath day. Well, I hope you found this information useful. If you did, would you help me get this life-giving word out? You can do that a few ways. You can leave me a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or better yet, tell a like-minded friend about the show. I bet they'll thank you for
You can also pick up a couple copies of my book, The Christian's Guide to Holistic Health, and give them away as gifts to your friends. It's available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, and Audible. Well, that's it for now. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you. I'll talk with you next time. Be blessed.
