Even if you absolutely love teaching Bible to children or teens, there may be a time when you just can’t seem to be as enthusiastic as you normally are. In fact, if you are totally honest, the idea of staying in bed sounds much more appealing. Or maybe you just feel burned out or find yourself being uncharacteristically impatient with your students.
Chances are great that you have gone a long time without having any Sabbath rest. You probably remember God rested on the seventh day of Creation. Later the Sabbath and its required rest became codified in the Law of Moses.
Fast forward to Christianity. The day of worship has moved to Sunday. The Sabbath was left behind in Judaism. Yet, Jesus modeled a Sabbath rest in his ministry that we should strive to copy for ourselves.
Read passages like Mark 6 and you find Jesus going off by himself quite a bit to rest, refuel and reconnect with God. When the Apostles came back from their first independent assignment, Jesus insisted they go off to a quiet place to rest, too.
If Jesus needed periods of rest, why do we believe they aren’t just as important for us? Yes, we might spend time relaxing by interacting with our devices. Unfortunately, that is a shallow rest. We may feel a slight lifting of our fatigue, but because we didn’t take the richer, fuller Sabbath rest, our exhaustion quickly returns.
In our next post, we will share some ideas of ways you can spend time in Sabbath rest. For now, look at your calendar. Where are some places you can schedule Sabbath rest? It doesn’t have to be an entire day once a week. You can break it up into smaller chunks of time over several days.
It’s critical though that you schedule times of Sabbath rest weekly if at all possible. Taking regular Sabbath rest can give you the same energy and joy for teaching your Bible class as when you first started volunteering.