Return from Sabbatical
Today is my second day officially working after taking a six month sabbatical, and I’d like to share my primary takeaways with you.
When I first felt this invitation from God to take a sabbatical, I looked forward to it as I would a long vacation. I could only anticipate the positives of being off from work. I thought about the opportunity to sleep in. I looked forward to the freedom to travel. I longed for space to get away on retreat more often.
While some of that has happened (I was never really able to sleep in), the truth is that my sabbatical hasn’t been like a long vacation at all. I discovered that while I was taking an intentional break from normal, everyday working, this break existed in order to embrace a different kind of work – the much harder work of tending to God’s action in my soul.
Soul work is the kind of work we often avoid. It can feel like wrestling with God. It requires us to face deep fears and accept hard realities. We know there is soul work to be done when we have afflictive emotions emerging during difficult experiences. Ironically, I noticed these afflictive emotions arising within me as I entered into sabbatical rest. As I ceased working, I felt a void and things got stirred up in me.
I had to repeatedly resist the urge to return to work prematurely. I had to resist the urge to drive for Uber or shop for Instacart, just so that I could be doing something productive. I felt incomplete without work. The emptiness of rest was terrifying, and in this fear I sensed an invitation to do some soul work. I wondered, “why am I resisting resting? Why is this sabbatical so hard for me?” Tending to these questions became the primary soul work I did on sabbatical.
I became aware of some of the reasons why I resist rest and long to never stop working. I work because I can meet some strong needs that I have:
Working helps me feel in control of life; if I’m producing and achieving, then life is moving in the right direction.
Working earns me affirmation and esteem from my peers.
Working helps me feel good about my future, because it is a way to advance my career and make money.
Some of these are undeniably necessary, but it’s my over attachment to control, esteem, and security that produced afflictive emotions when I began my sabbatical. I notice that my heart was looking to work to meet needs only the Lord can meet.
In the Old Testament, this concept of over attachment to something is called idolatry – a thing we cling to and trust in to our own detriment. In modern language, we don’t use the word idolatry. A better word in our modern context for this ancient concept is addiction. When I’m trying to meet my deep soul needs through my work, then work has become an addiction for me.
This is why taking a sabbatical felt so hard. I was in withdrawal. This is why my sabbatical wasn’t primarily about being on a long vacation. It felt more like detox, replete with all kinds of nasty symptoms that go along with it. So even though it’s been painful, I’m so grateful for the privilege of being on sabbatical. My sabbatical created the space for me to do the soul work I needed.
This insight has come from a passage that in a meaningful way sums up my sabbatical experience. Here it is:
15 For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,
“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
But you were unwilling, 16 and you said,
“No! We will flee upon horses”;
therefore you shall flee away;
and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”;
therefore your pursuers shall be swift.
17 A thousand shall flee at the threat of one;
at the threat of five you shall flee,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
like a signal on a hill.
The Lord Will Be Gracious
18 Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.
19 For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. 20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. 22 Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”
Isaiah 30:15-22, ESV
There is so much in this passage that connects with my experience of sabbatical, but the primary phrase that I keep hearing over and over again is this: “in repentance and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” This seems to be at the heart of the Lord’s invitation to me as I’ve stopped and rested. It’s an invitation to repent from my attachment to work. It’s an invitation to believe that I will not be saved through the work of my hands. I will not be saved by trusting in my own strength. I will not be saved by manipulative talking vis-à-vis listening.
And there are a couple of blessings that I see as flowing from choosing to repent and to rest. First, I will receive the gift of hearing the Lord’s voice. “your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” This is clearly a reference to the presence of the Spirit. If I can repent of the typical ways I search for happiness and salvation in work, then I will hear the Lord’s voice and experience his leading.
The second blessing is equally appealing. It is a promise to be free from the compulsions, addictions, and attachments that diminish the quality of my work. Isaiah puts it this way in verse 22: “Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, ‘Be gone!’” If I can choose to believe that salvation is found in going the way of repentance and rest, then I will receive a cleansing from my attachments that bring unhappiness. This is a different way to work.
In the midst of this passage there is so much more. There is a promise that the Lord longs to be merciful to us. There is a warning that if we are too afraid to repent and rest, then we will rely on our own strength (horses). The result is our fear will compound and we will flee. And there is the clear connection between the choice to live in repentance and rest and the experience of waiting. Repentance and rest often feels like waiting. A commitment to repentance and rest requires a willingness to sit in the incompleteness (and even the named experience of injustice) of waiting on the Lord to act.
On sabbatical, I connect with all of this, but I can also see that these invitations transcend more than just what happens during a sabbatical. These are things I’m invited to carry with me into everyday life. I’m invited to live a life of waiting on the Lord. I’m invited to repent of my way of working that is rooted in idolatry. I’m invited to work in the spirit of rest, which means I am constantly recognizing that my work is a partnership with what the Lord is already doing. I acknowledge my dependence upon the Lord’s activity in all parts of my life. All of these things I hope to take with me as I exit my formal sabbatical.
If you’re still reading, thank you! I’m still somewhat unsure about writing here, but at a minimum I wanted to share an update on my sabbatical with those of you who subscribed.
May the Lord bless you with repentance and rest as you trust in him.
John