This past week I finished reading “The Rest of God” by Mark Buchanan. A funny story about this book is that when I picked it up a couple months ago and started making my way through it, I thought I was re-reading it. I had posted quotes from this book and recommended it to others. I even bought a few extra copies of the ebook one day when it was on sale to give away. (Which, if you’re interested in a free copy, comment below!) I was so convinced this had been one of the best books I had read (especially on this topic) and was looking forward to revisiting it as I entered into a season of more intention rest following my surgery.
Then, I started reading and realized something crazy: I’ve never read this book before! I had definitely read parts of it, but there were whole other chapters I had never seen.
Thankfully, it didn’t disappoint! Not one bit. The truth it spoke as I’ve picked it up and put it down over the last few months has been timely, helpful, and encouraging.
One great thing about this book is that after each chapter it gives an idea for a “Sabbath Liturgy”. By the end of the book you’ve been equipped with 14 ideas for how to live in the rest of God (as in resting) and discover the rest of God (in the sense of there’s so much more still to discover). The chapters leading up to each liturgy are packed with humor and theology and stories from the author that not only point out our need for rest, but the amazing God who longs to give us this great gift. The book talks about Sabbath both as a day set apart and an attitude with which we walk through life. In the end, it points forward to a day where we will enjoy eternal rest forever. In a world where we seem to compete to be the busiest and then wonder why our lives are falling apart, Buchanan offers another option.
There are so many great things I could share from this book, but here are a few that have stuck out specifically to me:
“Sabbath is both a day and an attitude to nurture such stillness. It is both time on a calendar and a disposition of the heart. It is a day we enter, but just as much a way we see. Sabbath imparts the rest of God—actual physical, mental, spiritual rest, but also the rest of God—the things of God’s nature and presence we miss in our busyness.” (Page 2)
“It’s easy… to spend most of your life breaking Sabbath and never figure out that this is part of the reason your work’s unsatisfying, your friendships patchy, your leisure threadbare, your vacations exhausting. We simply haven’t taken time. We’ve not been still long enough, often enough, to know ourselves, our friends, our family. Our God.” (Page 61)
“Exodus grounds Sabbath in creation. Deuteronomy grounds it in liberation. Exodus remembers Eden, Deuteronomy Egypt. In Exodus, Sabbath-keeping is about imitating divine example and receiving divine blessing. In Deuteronomy, it is about taking hold of divine deliverance and observing divine command. Exodus looks up. Deuteronomy looks back. Exodus gives theological rationale for rest, and Deuteronomy historical justification for it. One evokes God’s character, the other his redemption. One calls us to holy mimicry—be like God; the other to holy defiance—never be slaves again…
Slaves don’t rest. Slaves can’t rest. Slaves, by definition, have no freedom to rest. Rest, it turns out, is a condition of liberty. God calls us to live in the freedom that he won for us with his own outstretched arm. Sabbath is a refusal to go back to Egypt..” (Pages 87-90)
And my very favorite… the one that drew me in to actually reading this book:
“…the truth is, the work’s never done, and never done quite right. It’s always more than you can finish and less than you had hoped for. So what? Get this straight: The rest of God—the rest God gladly gives so that we might discover that part of God we’re missing—is not a reward for finishing. It’s not a bonus for work well done. It’s sheer gift. It is a stop-work order in the midst of work that’s never complete, never polished. Sabbath is not the break we’re allotted at the tail end of completing all our tasks and chores, the fulfillment of all our obligations. It’s the rest we take smack-dab in the middle of them, without apology, without guilt, and for no better reason than God told us we could.” (Page 93)
Other Books I’m Currently Reading:
- Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by Rachel Hollis (83% completed)
- Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives by Richard Swenson (30% completed)
These two books came available as audiobooks through my local library around the same time. It’s been interesting to listen to them both alongside each other right now. They have such different writing styles and purposes but seem to be offering just the right balance of wisdom from two ends of a spectrum. Hope to write next week about these two!
And again, if you’d like a free Kindle version of “The Rest of God”, comment below! I have a few to give away!
joyfullyblessedblog.com 
I read margin some years ago. I found it very powerful and important in my life.
As I make my way through it, I think it’s one I started at some point along the way or read parts of before but never actually read the whole book. I’m enjoying the audiobook version of it since that’s what the library had. Doesn’t feel like too much “new” information but always good reminders along with some practical ideas of how it actually might play out in life.