4:13 Podcast: Can I Choose Sabbath? With Travis West [Episode 366]

Travis West: The no of Sabbath -- you have to say no to things on Sabbath -- is not an end in itself; it's actually creating the possibility of a much more important yes. Yes to life, yes to delight, yes to wonder and play and rest and connection and gratitude and contentment. And so we stop doing things, we create this boundary in order to make room in our lives for these remarkable things that are essential to what makes us human, to what makes us who we are.

Jennifer Rothschild: In the fast-paced, chaotic, overly scheduled cadence of our culture, it can be hard to fit in Sabbath. But what if Sabbath isn't designed to fit in to our lives, but rather to take over our lives?

Hebrew scholar and Old Testament professor Travis West, he's here and he believes that we may have misunderstood what it means to truly Sabbath, and today he's gonna help us understand that radical rest is much more than a weekly practice of taking a day off. It's also a posture, a way of living every day. So get ready for a new favorite conversation. KC, here we come.

KC Wright: Welcome, welcome to the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live the "I Can" life, because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

Now, welcome your host, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hi, our friends. That was KC Wright, my Seeing Eye Guy. It's two friends here in the closet, one topic, zero stress. And I'm telling you, of all the topics, this one is the least stressful. I'm getting a little tired and sleepy and relaxed just even thinking about it, this concept of Sabbath. Not because it's a sleepy subject --

KC Wright: No.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- because it is not. It is a very determined choice we make. But it is a restful promise. And so, you know, I was thinking, KC, this past summer, we got to go to the lake several times.

KC Wright: Oh, yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: And at this place we stay, there is a clock --

KC Wright: Yeah?

Jennifer Rothschild: -- that has no hands.

KC Wright: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: And it says on it, "Lake Time."

KC Wright: Come on.

Jennifer Rothschild: And I just thought that is like living Sabbath right there. Yeah, Travis is going to talk about how it is a way of life. And one of the things he talks about has to do with clocks. Another thing he's about to talk about has to do with resting.

And by the way, I do naps every day. Power naps, you know. I call them my happy nappy, because Mama's happy after her nappy. And Mama's not happy if she don't get no nappy. And so it's good for my testimony, it's good for my family life, it's good for my body, it's good for my mind to take a happy nappy. But really what it is, it's just 30 minutes where I pull back, step away, you know, for a Sabbath.

KC Wright: Right, right. Well, more and more research is coming out and you're learning that relationships, they lengthen life, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, right.

KC Wright: Relationships.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

KC Wright: More and more, not -- being alone is dangerous to your health. You need community, you need relationships. And then all of the studies. Yes, you gotta eat right; yes, you gotta work out. You gotta use those muscles or lose those muscles. But what they're saying is that rest, a good night's sleep --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

KC Wright: -- you gotta prioritize that rest.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

KC Wright: But every time I think of Sabbath, I think of -- well, I crave Chick-fil-A every Sunday. And they're closed because of Sabbath, right? And as they have honored the Lord, look at the Lord honoring Christian chicken --

Jennifer Rothschild: Isn't that the truth.

KC Wright: -- worldwide. Worldwide.

But also, I always think, man, Jesus took naps.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, he did.

KC Wright: Okay? It's a holy thing. And so -- there's nothing like a good Sunday service, followed up with a good lunch with people you love, and then falling into a Sunday nap. And you wake up around 6:00 at night, you're 12 years old and you feel like you've missed the bus, you've slept so hard.

Jennifer Rothschild: I know. Oh, man, I have not felt that in years. You're right, that is the best feeling ever.

KC Wright: But what he's talking about is a life of Sabbath --

Jennifer Rothschild: It is. It is.

KC Wright: -- where we're not rushed.

Jennifer Rothschild: Exactly. Exactly. But he does include -- Travis does include some very distinct practices. Y'all, this is a paradigm shift. And so I think we need to get ready to learn about Sabbath, because, man, we're going to want to live Sabbath.

KC Wright: Travis West is a professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. His previous books include "Biblical Hebrew" and "The Art of Biblical Performance." When he's away from the classroom and the writing desk, he can be found searching for wonder while walking the fields near his house, going to a farmer's market, watching a movie, or hanging out with his favorite person, his wife. All right, class, the professor is in.

Jennifer Rothschild: Travis, I gotta start geeking out just a little bit because, like, I am a minor prophet geek and I love the Old Testament, and you are a Hebrew scholar and an Old Testament professor.

Travis West: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: So before we even dive in to Sabbath, I just want to know how your background as a Hebrew scholar has shaped your understanding of Sabbath. But also just, like, what led you to that?

Because I've written some Bible studies on minor prophets, and literally -- I wrote one on Amos, and when I presented it to my publisher, I could have sworn I heard crickets. Like, Are you kidding me? You really want to write on Amos?

So I got to know what led you -- what was your interest in Hebrew scholarship, and then also how that's informed your understanding of Sabbath.

Travis West: Yeah. That's a great question. It's a long answer, but I'll try to give you the short version of it. Actually, I felt a calling in college to study the Scriptures and study theology. I loved it. I really wanted to pursue that. So I decided to go to seminary. Even though I didn't want to be a pastor and preach, I also was terrified of the prospect of taking the biblical languages. So that just sort of tells you how ironic and the sense of humor that God has.

When I was in seminary, my very first day of the Hebrew class, I had this experience like I'd never had before and haven't had since. It was like the roof of the classroom burst open and the Holy Spirit reached down and grabbed my heart and quickened its beat, and I felt this overwhelming sense of calling to commit my life to studying the Old Testament and to studying the Hebrew language. And that was the very first day of class, and I didn't even know the alphabet.

But I went home and I said to my wife after class, "I think I know what I want to do for the rest of my life." And that sort of started me off. That was 20 years ago, actually, that I had that experience that sort of led me off on this quest into the Old Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures.

And the way that -- I mean, that experience and the subsequent training that I've received has changed my life in fundamental ways and has shaped my understanding of Sabbath in almost its entirety. It was because of that decision to commit my life to that, the following summer I ended up going to Jerusalem with my wife to study biblical Hebrew. And that was really my very first kind of formal experience of a Sabbath rhythm, which is a cultural rhythm still in Israel, although that is eroding a little bit there.

But we -- all of a sudden everything stopped on Friday night. Busses didn't run, the Jewish shops weren't open. You couldn't do anything, you couldn't go anywhere. And we were kind of folded into this rhythm of weekly rest and celebration and connection, and it was unlike anything I'd experienced before, and it was absolutely amazing.

The problem entered when we came back home to Michigan and life didn't stop around us every week. It didn't sort of set the Sabbath table for us, if you will. And we went right back into our old rhythms of overworking, overscheduling, busy, busy, busy, running around exhausted, and never practiced Sabbath.

And then the following year I actually went back, and the first week when Sabbath came around, my wife and I looked at each other and we remembered that experience that we'd had and then we thought, oh, my gosh, this is what we've been missing. We committed right then and there to practicing the Sabbath every week and -- so it was sort of my vocational calling that introduced us to Sabbath in a very tangible way.

But in the book and in my life and in my classes, my expertise as a Hebrew scholar informs a lot of what I do and how I understand Sabbath. There's a number of really key Hebrew words that I reflect on in the book that help kind of open a deeper and more complex understanding of what the Sabbath is and how it works, and I go deeply into a number of really key biblical passages in the book that I bring kind of my expertise to bear on.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. Well, I love that because -- well, first of all, that was not too long. I appreciate you sharing all of that.

Travis West: Okay, good.

Jennifer Rothschild: And what I love is that your understanding of the Hebrew language and then the immersion then of -- you can't hardly separate that from the Jewish culture -- has helped inform your understanding of Sabbath. And here's the thing, Travis. In America, or in the West, Sabbath -- number one, it's not a thing. And if it is, we toss it around like, okay, one day out of seven, we gotta -- everybody chill out, you know?

Travis West: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: But I don't think we really understand it. So you just mentioned several Hebrew words that help represent Sabbath. So first of all, give us a working definition, according to the Old Testament, of what Sabbath is, and then share with us some of those Hebrew words that might give us a better clarification of it.

Travis West: Yeah. So, I mean, biblically speaking, Sabbath is really fundamentally the cessation of work. The word itself means to cease or to stop. Later on it took on the sense of rest and celebration. But it really is about stopping our work. And Sabbath is first introduced -- well, of course, Sabbath is introduced into creation by God in Genesis 1. It's woven into the fabric of creation there.

But it's first kind of instituted in Exodus 16, which is immediately following Israel's liberation from Egypt and crossing of the Red Sea and entrance into the wilderness. The first chapter after Israel crosses the Red Sea is the story of manna, and the story of manna is really a way of introducing Sabbath into the fabric of the people of Israel.

And what's so fundamental about that is that what Sabbath, then -- its function biblically speaking -- it means to cease work. But its function is to transform our identity. So the Sabbath is central to God's strategy for transforming people from -- in this first case, 400 years of enslavement. That's a long time to develop an identity around being enslaved, being marginalized, being worthless, discardable. Right? Sabbath is central to God's strategy for transforming them from that identity into the identity of God's freed, liberated, and loved people.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Travis West: And so this actually comes before the Ten Commandments, and so it's sort of grace before law, if you might say it that way.

Jennifer Rothschild: Love that.

Travis West: And there are so many important words that I could draw on. One, of course, is the word "Sabbath" itself, which in Hebrew is "Shabbat" that I've already talked about. Another really kind of beautiful word is not an explicit Sabbath word, but it's really relevant. It goes back to the Genesis 1 creation account. On the second day of creation, God creates the firmament or the dome -- right? -- this boundary that holds back the chaotic waters and creates a living space. It really -- in a sense, it creates oxygen that organic life needs to live and survive.

But what happens is God speaks, and God's words enter the waters and God's words create this boundary that in Hebrew is the word "raqia." Raqia. And that raqia is a boundary that creates the conditions in which life can flourish. And I think raqia is the first biblical metaphor for Sabbath. The Sabbath is exactly that, it's a raqia in time where we create these boundaries around our work, around our -- the commitments and obligations that create stress and anxiety and hurry and worry and exhaustion and burnout. We create a boundary against those things, and in doing so we create the conditions in which our lives can flourish.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Travis West: And so the no of Sabbath, you have to say no to things on Sabbath, is not an end in itself. It's actually creating the possibility of a much more important yes. Yes to life, yes to delight, yes to wonder and play and rest and connection and gratitude and contentment. And so we stop doing things, we create this boundary in order to make room in our lives for these remarkable things that are essential to what makes us human, to what makes us who we are.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow. Okay, I love that. I love everything about that.

I also love that you brought out that picture of how the manna came before the Ten Commandments, the grace came before the law. And I'm pointing that only because sometimes we can -- I know sometimes we can listen to things and think, okay, God commanded Sabbath. I gotta do this thing and I gotta do it right -- right? --

Travis West: Exactly.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- because that's the law.

Travis West: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: But you're saying it's really a gift of grace. And so as I hear you saying also it requires some no's in order for a better yes, it reminds me that in your book you mention that the Sabbath challenges our cultural malformation. So what are some beliefs or some habits that we need to learn, or maybe even unlearn, in order to be able to practice Sabbath? Or how does maybe practicing Sabbath expose those things we need to unlearn?

Travis West: Yeah. There's so many habits that our culture has created in us that we need to unlearn. One -- kind of continuing on this similar theme that we've been talking about, one of the habits or the beliefs that I talk about in the book is that we've been taught that everything -- we have to earn everything good in our lives, that there really isn't -- you know, nothing is for free. You know the phrase there's no free lunch, right? Someone has to pay for it.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Travis West: And this sense that -- I mean, that isn't -- that message isn't bad in itself, right? You go to work, you work a certain number of hours, you get your paycheck as a reward or as compensation. You work hard, you fulfill your assignments and you get a grade as your reward. You earn that grade, you earn that paycheck. There's nothing wrong with that.

But when we universalize that and we apply that same principle to every part of our lives, which I think we have, that's where we start getting into problems. And the Sabbath helps expose that and helps divert us or form us in a different way, because we don't -- we might think we have to finish our work before we can Sabbath, right? We're told, you know, all throughout childhood, "You can't play until you finish your work" --

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Travis West: -- right? I mean, that's like fundamental to childhood, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Travis West: And, of course, every child bucks against that. But then that gets ingrained out of us and we lose that sense of prioritizing play. Sabbath is an invitation to reprioritize play.

And so a few years ago, this sense of having to earn everything came really sort of clear to me and how insidious it was in my own life related to Sabbath. There was a week that I had just -- it was super busy, it was really full, and Sabbath came -- and my wife and I do our Sabbath Friday to Saturday. Because when we started Sabbathing, I was working in the church on Sundays and that was, like, the worst -- the biggest work day of the week.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, no Sabbath then.

Travis West: No Sabbath for the pastor. And so that sort of became our rhythm.

So it was a Saturday morning, I went out for my morning Sabbath walk, which is my custom. And I was cutting through the parking lot next to my house and walking into the fields, and I took this big sigh and a big breath and I let it all out. And I heard myself say, "Oh, I earned my Sabbath this week."

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, wow.

Travis West: And I stopped in my tracks and I was like, What did I just say? I earned my Sabbath this week? I had been teaching on Sabbath, I taught a class at the seminary on Sabbath. I'd been preaching about Sabbath, I'd been practicing Sabbath for 15 years probably by this point. I was like, how could I still believe that I have to earn Sabbath? And so that was like a -- kind of just a wake-up call for me of this insidious way in which we have to earn everything works its way into our psyche.

And the Sabbath counters that, because in creation Sabbath begins at the end of the sixth day. So time works differently in the Bible than it does in the West. The day begins with evening, and it extends through the morning and then ends again the next evening. And so you remember in creation, it was evening and it was morning day one; it was evening, it was morning day two, right? So the day actually begins at the evening. And this is the -- this is really an expression of Sabbath time. So we -- our day, our work day, ends when the sun sets.

So the sun, which has no consideration of our life, our work, whether we've sent the email or not, whether we've completed the project or not, the sun doesn't care. The sun sets on its own timeline. And when the sun sets, Sabbath begins. And I think that is an invitation into the gift of Sabbath. We don't have to earn it. We can't earn it actually, because it's a gift.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Travis West: And so we just receive it. And even if our work isn't done, even if we were distracted the whole week and feel like we accomplished nothing, the Sabbath is still a gift that God gives us every week. And that is really countercultural and it helps us sort of come -- it helps us frame a different mindset around work.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. And you know what it does too, to me, Travis, is -- it's humbling. For those of us who might tend to be -- you know, I am what I do or --

Travis West: Yes. Exactly.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- I'm as -- you know, productivity, to-do lists, all those things, and to leave them undone is very humbling. And that's healthy. That's so healthy.

Wow. It's such an invitation. It really is. It reminds me too of the psalm, when the psalmist says, "You have put the boundaries for me in pleasant places."

Travis West: Yes. Exactly.

Jennifer Rothschild: This is a very pleasant boundary.

Okay. So in your book -- I want to go back to it, because you organize it around what you call this threefold discipleship process. You call it orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. Okay. Give us an idea of what that is and then how it applies to Sabbath.

Travis West: Yeah. So really this threefold process is how I understand the discipleship journey, the journey of transformation, spiritual formation. And it's really based in -- I mean, it's based in all kinds of things in Scripture, it's based on the life of Jesus, it's based on all kinds of things that get expressed in nature. It's kind of a universal process.

So in Jesus' life, we see it in his life and his death and his resurrection -- right? -- this threefold process. We see it in Egypt, and then in the wilderness, and then in the Promised Land. And in nature we see it, the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the butterfly. Or we could see it in sleeping, and the alarm clock, and awake, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Travis West: It's this threefold process. And the way that I understand it and talk about it in the book, orientation is really about cultivating self-awareness. How are we being formed? How are we being oriented by our culture to live and act and behave and believe certain things that shape our life? By the economy that we live in, by the entertainment system that shapes us, social media, work culture, all of those things, how are we being formed? And then what are the value systems that inform that?

And then the disorientation, which is the wilderness period or the death of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, the disorientation is when we bring Sabbath values into conversation with the cultural values that are shaping us, the Sabbath disrupts and disorients those values and that formation and it wants to form us in a different way.

Because for the most part, the values of our larger culture are forming us in anti-Sabbath ways. Busyness over presence, right? Division over delight. Productivity over presence. All of these values are forming us in ways that are opposed to the Sabbath.

So the disorientation is what do we have to die to in order to experience the fullness of life that Jesus promised us? What do we have to cease from on Sabbath to remember who we are as God's beloved children? That we are not what we do, but we are beloved simply because of the fact that we're created in God's image.

And then the reorientation is the new life. What are the Sabbath practices that we can implement every week, and even throughout the week, that continually reorient us towards this Godward way, the way that God wants us to live and the way that is the abundant life God offers us, and a life that is marked by abundance, marked by joy, marked by delight and connection and service and justice and all these things?

So that's the threefold process.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Travis West: And I try to offer in the book a really expansive vision of Sabbath, that it's not just this one isolated thing that's a day disconnected from everything else in life, but really Sabbath is the anchor for our life. It's the metronome that establishes the rhythm that our whole life is lived on.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Travis West: Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel calls Sabbath the climax of living. It's not like this add-on or this appendage to life, it's actually the orienting principle of life.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow. I love that you called it the metronome too. I mean, that's just obvious.

Travis West: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: So I was going to go to my last question. But before I do, I have to ask you one more question. Because as I'm hearing all this and that it's a lifestyle, it's a mentality, it's obedience, it's a gift, it's a boundary, it's all the things. And then I think of the Ten Commandments, when God tells his people to honor the Sabbath and to keep it holy. So my granny meant -- that meant she couldn't cook or wear makeup, you know?

Travis West: Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: So what does it mean, in context of what you're speaking, for us to keep the Sabbath holy?

Travis West: Yeah. That's a great question. It's the exact same experience that my mom had growing up. That her parents had what I call the tentacles of Puritanism.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Travis West: This kind of legalism -- legalistic Sabbath of don'ts and prohibitions that really kind of made it the worst day of the week --

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Travis West: -- to be honest.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Cold food, no games, nothing, because we were being holy.

Travis West: Yeah. You can't run outside, you can't play, you can't laugh.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Travis West: You can pray and you can sleep. And you can go to church twice.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Travis West: And the intention of all those laws and rules was to honor the holiness of the day.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right. Exactly.

Travis West: And so it was well intentioned. But I think -- I mean, there is a -- there's a sense in which holiness sort of demands a sense of reverence -- right? -- and a sense of intentionality. All of the laws and the sacrificial system, for instance, in the Old Testament are intended to ensure the fact that the people of Israel approached God's presence reverently and purposefully and with intention. But I think we can put so much emphasis on that that we actually erode the point of that, which was for the people of Israel to come into a meaningful connection, an encounter with the living God that was transformative for them.

And I believe that God is serious, but also deeply playful, and that laughter and levity and fun is central to God's heart and God's longing for God's people. And so I think that it's important for a Sabbath practice to include both moments of seriousness, of prayer, of reflection, of paying attention to our inner life.

I think that's what maybe the intention of some of those rules were. And, like, you can pray and you can journal. The intention is to pay attention to our inner life. What is going on inside of us during the week that we're running away from six days a week? We actually -- it's really important to attend to those things on the Sabbath. And so journaling and prayer are, I think, really important.

You know, a serious conversation and reflection with the people you know and love about the shape of your life and what -- where are you hearing God's voice whispering to you to -- you know, nudging you to live differently? That, I think, really honors the holiness of the day.

But God's holiness is not 100% serious. I mean, when did we start believing that to honor something or to revere something meant that we had to be sad --

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Travis West: -- the whole time?

Jennifer Rothschild: Austere.

Travis West: Austere?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Travis West: And so I think --

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, you know -- Travis, that reminds me. You know, it was C.S. Lewis who said joy is the serious business of heaven.

Travis West: Absolutely.

Jennifer Rothschild: And this is our God.

Travis West: Yes, yes, yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: So to honor and keep it holy is to honor his whole character. The delight, the joy, I just --

Travis West: Yes, absolutely. That's right.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love that. Thank you for bringing that out, because -- and you're right, the intentions were good. But we can take anything good and take it to an extreme and misunderstand. I just -- I go back to where you started: grace first, then the law.

Travis West: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, brother, this is going to be our last question. And I'm so glad you've written a book that goes deep, because I could listen to you and talk to you about this all day. But we gotta have time for Sabbath. Okay? So here we go --

Travis West: That's right.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- last question. Each chapter of your book, it gives a very practical Sabbath practice. So I would love it if you would end real practical here so that our 4:13ers can start this week, like even before they get your book. Give us one or two very doable and accessible Sabbath practices and tell us how to do them.

Travis West: Yeah. I love it. This is so important. In fact, this is something that it took my wife and I a really long time to learn. As I said earlier, we didn't really have any models when we came back. We didn't have any idea how to Sabbath when we got back from Israel. And how do you start? How do you end? What do you do? And so that's something that I imagine a lot of the readers of the book would -- the kinds of questions they would bring as well. So this is really, really important to have a plan.

And that's really the first practice in the book, is make a plan. Decide when to start, decide when to end. And then decide how to start. Traditionally people might light candles, say a prayer or speak a blessing, maybe name some things that they're grateful for from the previous week.

My wife and I have a Sabbath plate that we brought back with us from Jerusalem, and we have some pottery and some candles and this handmade towel we lay out on the table every week, and we sing a simple Sabbath song. And that kind of helps us -- I call this a threshold ritual. It helps us pass through that threshold from ordinary time to Sabbath time. It helps us, you know, to know what time it is and it helps to sort of frame our experience of the Sabbath and frame it with intention.

And then have a plan for what constitutes work for you. When you think about what you do and how you show up six days of the week, write down some of the things that constitute work for you and then decide not to do those things. At the same time, what constitutes delight for you? When do you notice yourself feeling fully alive? What do you love to do that you always say you don't have time to do? Write those things down, and then maybe circle a couple of those and then decide to make -- to use the time you make on your Sabbath, to fill it with those things.

It's really helpful for families to do this together and to get the kids involved. So often I think parents feel the need to impose things like Sabbath on their kids. I think it can be really helpful to involve the kids in this process so that they feel like they have ownership and have a voice.

So on my website there's actually a worksheet that you can print out and fill out that has all of these questions on it, and then that can prompt a conversation for you as a family about how you want to shape this. So that's really the first and probably the most important practice in the book. But I'll give you one other that's probably my favorite.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, yeah.

Travis West: Which is -- my wife and I discovered that several years ago, Sabbath is really -- it's an invitation to change our relationship with time. And one of the ways that we do this is really quite playful. We cover all the clocks in our house on Sabbath. Part of our threshold ritual. We cover the clock on our oven, we cover the clocks in our car. I take my Apple watch off, we put our phones away.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Travis West: And it creates a timeless day. And what this does is -- it does a couple things. One thing, it invites us to just pay attention to our bodies. Instead of eating when it's 12:00, we eat when we're hungry. We actually pay attention to the sensations of hunger in our body. When we're restless, we go for a walk. When we're tired, we take a nap. Right? So it changes our relationship with our body.

But it also changes our relationship with time, because I notice myself -- I mean, a hundred times throughout the day I look at the oven to see what time it is.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Travis West: Right? Or I search -- where's my phone? What time is it?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Travis West: And seeing the cover on the clock or noticing that I put my phone down in the basement reminds me of, wow, I check the time a lot throughout the day. Why am I so interested and curious about what time it is? Or why am I so anxious that I don't know where my phone is? Why am I reaching for my phone right now?

And then that recognition invites a kind of internal reflection on what's going on inside of me. Am I feeling anxious and am I seeking distraction? Am I feeling nervous and I want to know what time it is? Am I going to miss something? An appointment?

And so those things really help cultivate this sense of self-awareness that I think is critical for any kind of growth in the spiritual life.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, Class, you heard the professor. First practice is to make a plan. Decide when to start, and decide when to end, and also how to start.

KC Wright: Yes. He gave some great ideas. Light candles, pray, speak blessings. Speak gratefulness. Uh-oh, we got some podcasts on thanksgiving and gratefulness. You know that a thankful heart is a magnet for miracles, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. There you go.

I did love the idea, KC, of a Sabbath plate. Didn't you think that was interesting --

KC Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- when he mentioned a Sabbath plate? And that he even has, like, a handmade towel. Very simple things. But, gosh, it really helps him to remember and to transition into Sabbath. And I love that they also sing Sabbath songs.

KC Wright: The goal is to have some kind of ritual that helps you move from ordinary time to Sabbath time. I like that. Sabbath time. And like Travis said, be practical. Write down what is work for you and then don't do those things. Figure out what delight means to you. When do you feel alive? Write them down and choose just one to do.

Man, our people, we all need this. I need this.

Jennifer Rothschild: Mm-hmm.

KC Wright: This was like a -- this was like a 30-minute vacation for my soul.

Jennifer Rothschild: I know. Amen.

KC Wright: Go to traviswest.com to see all his Sabbath ideas. Or even easier, we'll link you to his website, his book, and the transcript from this life-giving conversation. It's at the Show Notes, like always, at 413podcast.com/366.

And we're giving one away. We're giving one of his books away. So you can also win one for you or a friend. To enter to win, go to Jennifer's Instagram. Just simply go to @jennrothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, wow. Sabbath really is an invitation to change our relationship with time. That was my big takeaway. So let's accept that invitation, our friends. You can accept this invitation because you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. I can.

KC Wright: I can.

Jennifer and KC: And you can.

Jennifer Rothschild: I am really going to try this, KC. Like, I'm going to -- like, I haven't figured out how. But that's the first thing he said, come up with a plan and then come up with a time you're going to start. So those are my two goals. I'm going to come up with a plan and I'm coming up with a start time.