Subversive Sabbath Quotes

“exhaustion. When the topic arises, I love using it as an opportunity to discuss the biblical invitation to rest. Often a person will ask for prayer to get rest. Quite frankly, I often feel tempted to refuse to pray for them. The fact that one is exhausted when overworking eighty hours a week and never keeping a Sabbath is not a prayer issue; it is an obedience issue. We should not pray for God to do what we are supposed to do. The problem remains that we are not entering into the thing, Sabbath, that very well could begin to repair our lives. Similarly, Joel Salatin, a Christian pig farmer, writes that when people ask for prayer to be made healthy but do not live in a healthy way and eat healthy food, God will not acquiesce to our petitions. In short, “we’re ingesting things that are an abomination to our bodies . . . and then requesting prayer for the ailments that result.”18 God is not likely to answer in prayer what you are unwilling to repent of.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“a no is the language of intention. No one accidentally says no these days. Except for laziness, a no actually comes from a place of self-knowledge, of self-restraint, of self-awareness. For the Christian, a no should be spoken with the discernment of what God has spoken yes over. We must be sensitive to what God has called us to in order to be free to say no to other prospects. We must have ground in our week that is fallow, free from commitments, free of obligations, a place where life can flourish.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“As we think about what to do and not do on the Sabbath, we should be quick to realize that our question should be less about certain activities and more about how we are posturing our hearts. Psalm 92 invites us to bow low and love the God of Sabbath.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“While Christians are going to enter into the Sabbath in a unique way, to remember the Sabbath is to remember who we are—children born of the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. To keep a Sabbath is to give time and space on our calendar to the grace of God.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“As New York University’s Daniel Fleming has aptly shown, the phrase “by the sweat of your brow” does not mean that physical labor is cursed. Rather, this was an ancient way of speaking of a new anxiety around work that is the result of fear and accomplishment”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Achievement,” once wrote Mary Bell, “is the alcohol of our time.”8 Work is our drug, our numbing agent, escape hatch, and anesthetizing behavior. Achievement makes us feel the semblance of some glow of heightened, idolized identity where we are what we do. In this modern world, we have become addicts to doing, making, producing, and accomplishing.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Yet work becomes our curse when it becomes what we worship.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Up until this time, I had thought Sabbath-keeping was selfish. And I thought that if I did rest, it was a sign of weakness. Then I had the epiphany of a lifetime: I had been trying to be selfless. In helping everyone else, I had forgotten myself. I had become the preacher of the gospel who needed the gospel himself. Or, worse yet, I subconsciously thought God wanted me to forget about myself so I could serve others. But that is not the gospel. Jesus loves me too. I could love others only to the extent that I could recognize God’s love for me. I could see to the needs of my community only to the extent that I admitted my own needs. I could care for God’s people only to the extent that I would allow him to care for me. In forgetting all this, I had neglected to care for the body God had given me, the spirit he breathed into me, this soul that he molded with his own hand.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Sabbath baptizes our week into the grace and mercy of God.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering. Winnie-the-Pooh, in The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Silence is giving space to see what is at the bottom of our souls.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Sabbath is a reminder that in our irrelevance we are still loved by the Maker of everything.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Erin Lane: “Sabbath freedom is not the freedom to spend our time wisely. Instead, Sabbath freedom is the freedom to live large.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“You notice when people live by convictions, especially when it costs them.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Sabbath dethrones humanity from its self-aggrandized place of lordship over creation by handing authority of the world back to the One to whom it already belongs.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“We should expect difficulty to arise for ourselves when we Sabbath.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“No matter your situation, God is always a worthy excuse to say no to something.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Teach someone not to Sabbath and they will be hostile to it and pass that along to the next generation. Teach someone to Sabbath and you will raise up a generation that knows how to rest in the presence of God.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“A “day off” cannot sustain the human soul. Only a Sabbath can.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Godly rest, particularly in a 24/7 world, is never accidental and can only come when we have gone out of our way to prepare for it.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“True community is not born of our efforts in creating a sense of community—it is the natural outcome from the act of loving other people.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“The Sabbath is God’s solution to FOMO anxieties. On the Sabbath, we are “in” because we are with Jesus Christ. God is with us. And the world does not define us.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Like sleep, the day of rest comes before the fall. Rest was not a result of the devil’s work. As we were made to eat and breathe and walk, we were made, from the foundations of the world, to rest, or to Sabbath, in God.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Few would disagree with the statement: creation is not operating the way it’s supposed to. Through abuse, misuse, and selfishness, humans have been consumers rather than stewards of the created world. As a result, the well-being of creation, its shalom, is harmed. We must be cognizant that things are in disrepair and that humans are the only part of creation capable of reversing the damage done.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“compassion fatigue,” a real onset of exhaustion from the concerns of the world. Studies show how the flooding of news actually harms our ability to have real compassion and do something helpful.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“By experience I have learned that I rarely enter the Sabbath day with a finished to-do list.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World

“Violating the eternal law is not like doing 40 in a 35-mile-per-hour zone when there is no traffic around; it is more like trying to violate the law of gravity. . . . An apple falling from a tree has no choice about whether to obey the law of gravity . . . [but] human beings can voluntarily wreck their lives by running afoul of the laws that govern their nature.”
― A.J. Swoboda, Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World