What I Learned When I Finally Stopped

Seven Lessons From My First-Ever Sabbatical



For most of my life, I have been moving. Military. Preaching. Leading. Pastoring. Teaching. Writing. Building. Traveling. Making decisions. Solving problems. Helping people. Raising a family. Leading organizations. Serving my community. Moving. So, for the first time in my life, I took an extended sabbatical. I wish I could tell you that I immediately knew how to do it. I didn't. I knew how to work. I knew how to lead. I even knew how to vacation. What I discovered was that I didn't really know how to stop--Sabbatical.

My sabbatical has included reading through the Gospels, spending time with Ruth Haley Barton's Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, journaling, praying, reflecting, exercising, sleeping, enjoying family, doing absolutely nothing sometimes, and deliberately resting physically, mentally and spiritually.

Somewhere in all that quiet, I began hearing things that the noise of my normal life had made difficult to hear. I heard God. And perhaps just as importantly, I heard myself. Here are some things I've learned.

1. Sunday Is Not the Sabbath—and Taking Sundays Off Is Not a Sabbatical

Growing up, Sunday was different. Very few stores were open. My mother cooked Sunday dinner on Saturday and warmed it up on Sunday. We didn't wash clothes. We didn't clean the house—that was Saturday’s chores. There were things you simply didn't do. Our biblical interpretation taught us that Sunday was the Sabbath and that you didn't work on the Sabbath because the Bible said so. I've come to understand something deeper.

Not working on Sunday doesn't automatically mean you've experienced Sabbath. And taking a few Sundays away from your normal responsibilities doesn't necessarily mean you've experienced sabbatical. Sabbath is more than a day on the calendar. It is a posture of trust. It is declaring through our actions: God, I trust You enough to stop. That's harder than it sounds—especially for leaders. There is always another sermon to prepare, another meeting to attend, another problem to solve, another decision to make and another person who needs something.

But Jesus Himself repeatedly withdrew. He stepped away from crowds. He left demands unanswered. He found solitary places. And He prayed. If Jesus needed intentional space with the Father, what makes any of us think we don't?

2. Busyness Can Hide What's Happening in Your Soul

This may have been one of the most uncomfortable discoveries of my sabbatical.

Busyness can numb you. As a senior pastor and ministry leader, I have spent decades pouring into other people. That's part of my calling, and I love it. But here's the danger: You can become so accustomed to doing spiritual things that you assume everything happening inside you must also be spiritually healthy. Those are not the same thing. Church activity is not necessarily spiritual nourishment. Preaching isn't necessarily personal devotion. Preparing a Bible study isn't necessarily allowing the Bible to study you. Leadership can teach you to evaluate everything around you—people, programs, budgets, organizations, attendance, performance and results.

Sabbatical turned the evaluation inward. Psalm 139:23 says: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” That's a dangerous prayer. Because when God searches you, He doesn't spend all His time showing you what's wrong with everybody else. He shows you, you. Journaling has been particularly powerful for me it helps me see me. There's something about putting your thoughts on paper that makes it harder to run away from them. I began asking myself questions.

Why is stopping so difficult for me? Why can doing nothing sometimes make me uncomfortable? Why do I feel guilty when I'm not producing? What am I carrying that God never told me to carry? What has my busyness allowed me to avoid? I didn't always like the answers. But I'm grateful that I finally became quite enough to ask the questions.

3. I Knew How to Vacation—I Didn't Know How to Rest

I've taken vacations. I've traveled to beautiful places. I've enjoyed wonderful meals, resorts and experiences. I've spent time with family. I've slept late. I've exercised. I've sat around doing nothing. But my sabbatical taught me than experiences: Reclining on vacation is NOT the same thing as resting in God. You can change locations without changing rhythms. Your body can be lying beside the ocean while your mind is still sitting behind your desk. You can be thousands of miles away and still be thinking about the sermon, the church, the organization, the next decision, the unanswered message or what somebody might think about you being away.

Jesus told His disciples in Mark 6:31: “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Notice that Jesus didn't merely tell them to stop working. He invited them to come with Him. That's different. I'm learning that genuine rest is physical, mental and spiritual. My body needed rest. My mind needed rest. But perhaps more than I realized, my soul needed rest. Ruth Haley Barton's work has challenged me to pay attention to the condition of the leader's soul—not simply the effectiveness of the leader's work. That distinction matters.

Because eventually what is happening in the leader will affect what is happening through the leader. I've learned something else: God can run the world without me. He can handle the church. He can handle the organization. He can handle the people. He can handle the problems. That isn't bad news. That's freedom. Freedom from worry and an increase in my faith and trust in God

4. I Had to Stop Reading the Bible for Everybody Else

This one surprised me. During my sabbatical, I've been intentionally re-reading through the Gospels. But I'm reading them differently. Pastors develop an occupational hazard when reading Scripture. We see sermons everywhere! You read a passage and immediately think: That'll preach. You see three points. You see an illustration. You think about what the congregation needs to hear. You think about your next Bible study. None of that is wrong. But I realized how often, I had approached Scripture asking: “What can I get from this for somebody else?” Sabbatical changed the question.

Now I'm asking: “Jesus, what are You saying to me?” Luke tells us that Mary sat at Jesus' feet listening while Martha was busy serving. What challenges me about that story is that Martha wasn't doing something evil. She was serving Jesus. And yet serving Jesus had become a distraction from simply being with Jesus. That hit me. There is a difference between working for Jesus and being with Jesus. I need both.

So, I've been reading the Gospels more slowly. Watching Jesus. Listening to Jesus. Paying attention to what moves Him. Watching how He responds to people. Watching how He handles opposition. Watching how He withdraws. Watching Him pray. Watching Him rest. And sometimes I'm resisting the temptation to turn what I discover into another sermon. Because every Word God gives me isn't necessarily for somebody else. Sometimes the Word is for me. Before I'm a preacher, I'm a disciple. Before I'm a leader, I'm a follower. Before I'm responsible for feeding anybody else, I have to eat.

5. The Sabbatical reminded me regret Can't Give Me Back the Time

There has also been a difficult emotion accompanying this experience. Deep tearful regret. Why didn't I do this earlier? Why didn't I take extended sabbaticals throughout my years of leadership? The opportunity was there. It was/is in my employment contract. The Vision Board encouraged me to take the time. But I loved working. For years, I convinced myself that a week away was enough. Get away. Recharge. Get back. I thought that was all I needed. Now, after experiencing extended time away, I see things differently. There have been moments when I've thought about what years of that pace may have cost me—and what it may have cost the people I love. That's where regret can become dangerous.

Because regret wants you to spend today's grace mourning yesterday's decisions. I can't do that. The Bible warns about putting your hand to the plow and continually looking backward. So, I acknowledge the regret. I learn from it. But I refuse to live in it. I cannot recover yesterday. But I can allow what God is teaching me today to change tomorrow.

6. I'm Still Under Construction

Perhaps this is the lesson that ties everything together. After decades of ministry, leadership, education, accomplishments, successes, failures and life experiences... I'm still a work in progress. And I'm good with that. Philippians 1:6 says that the One who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion. My sabbatical wasn't God's opportunity to finish me. It was another opportunity for God to form me. Prayer. Journaling. Reflection. Reading. Sleeping. Exercising. Talking with family. Sitting quietly. Sometimes watching television. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing. All of it has reminded me that God is still constructing and reconstructing parts of me. But there is another challenge waiting.

Eventually, sabbatical ends. And I think the real test of a sabbatical isn't what happens while you're away. It's how you live when you return. If I return to every habit, every rhythm, every expectation and every pattern that exhausted my soul before I left, then I may have taken an extended vacation—but I will have missed one of the greatest gifts of the sabbatical. Some things cannot come back with me. I want to pray differently. I want to read Scripture differently. I want to rest differently. I want to lead differently. I want to protect the quiet places where God has been meeting me. And I want to remember that my value to God was never determined by how much I could produce for Him.

7. Unanswered questions

I'm Coming Back—but not the same. My first sabbatical has not answered every question. It has actually created some new ones. And that's okay. I didn't need 60 days to figure everything out. I needed enough time to become quiet enough to listen. Listen to God. Listen to my body. Listen to my family. Listen to my thoughts. Listen to my soul. Not that I’ve never done that before. I’ve never had my attention this long to it like this before. I've discovered that sometimes the most spiritual thing a leader can do isn't preach another sermon, attend another meeting, launch another initiative or solve another problem.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is stop. Be still. Sit with Jesus. Let God search you. Rest without guilt. Receive without producing. And remember that the God who called you to the work also cares deeply about the condition of the person doing the work. So I'm coming back. Rested—but still growing. Refreshed—but still learning. Grateful—but still reflecting. Returning—but not returning the same. The construction isn't over. And I've finally learned that it doesn't have to be. I'm still under construction. And God is still working on me.