The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction

by Justin Whitmel Earley

If you’ve lived your life believing that you can earn your worth, that you can earn your salvation by outweighing the bad with the good, that you can justify your place in this world through the money you earn or status you achieve—come and rest! Come and sabbath with Jesus. Here there is peace that no amount of effort can buy: he came to you first. He lived the good life we are all trying to live. He did it all. He sacrificed everything. He always said the right thing. He always knew what to do and where to go. And where did it get him? It got him killed. People hated him. They stripped him naked and killed him. He lived the light of life we’re all trying to live, and he was answered with death. But it was all for love. It was all for you! He stayed up all night in the garden of Gethsemane so you could sleep. He finished his work on the cross so you could rest. He let the world break him so it doesn’t have to break you. He rose from the grave so all your aspirations won’t end in the grave.