For a number of years I've done my best to take a day off, a day when I unplug. No email or phone messages. Sleep as late as I can and just plain chill out. God Himself rested and established a weekly Sabbath for His people, so they could be reinvigorated and more fully lean into His goodness.
I'm learning more about what it means to practice what the Jews call Shabbat. Shabbat (or Sabbath) is part of their very culture, woven into the fabric of their lives. As a Gentile follower of Christ, this is foreign soil, not to mention that everything in our culture works against it. So, I've been doing my best to learn more about practicing a true spiritual Sabbath. I think Shabbat is more than a day off once each week. It's certainly not a day to catch up on housework. It's a day for reflection, rest and activity that refreshes you. It's a day to deliberately abstain from worry. Orthodox Jews don't even offer prayers of petition on Shabbat, just prayers of praise. In the Jewish practice of Sabbath, there is also a deliberate decision to refrain from anything commercial, anything aimed at acquiring. Even the handling of money is considered a desecration.[1]It is a day to take yourself entirely out of the game, as it were. In the process of taking yourself out of the game you are reminding yourself that God is not out of the game. He is working when you are not working.
Like learning other worthwhile things, diligently maintaining a weekly Sabbath involves a learning curve. Yes, as Jesus points out, there are times when a true emergency demands our attention, but it is good to remind ourselves that all that is urgent is not important. If you do not consistently have the type of day I've described, why? Would your life benefit from it? How might your inner self be attended to by practicing Shabbat?