The other day I imagined coaching my son’s youth sports team and I wondered what team rules would resonate with small children. The two rules that came to mind are listen well and do your best. As I pondered these more, I realized that you can get pretty far in life by living by these two rules. Let’s explore what these look like in practice.

Listen Well

A quote from the movie Fight Club sums up a lot of conversations: “Most people don’t listen when you talk, they are just waiting for their turn to speak.” Listening well is a great life skills that will help you in every area of life. Here are some ways in which you can listen well:

• Maintain eye contact- In sports this might look like not messing with a ball or your equipment when the coach is talking. In life it might look like putting your phone away during conversations.
• Don’t interrupt or talk when the other person is talking– It’s impossible to talk and listen at the same time.
• Ask questions until you understand– Curiosity is a much better default than assuming.
• Repeat back what the other person said to confirm that you heard correctly– I think this is especially important when conversing with someone who has different beliefs and opinions. Pastor Tim Keller suggests that we represent and engage with our opponents’ position in the strongest form. We should “do all the work necessary until [we] can articulate the views of [our] opponent with such strength that he says, ‘I couldn’t have said it better myself.’”
• Assume that they know something that you don’t (Credit to Jordan Peterson)- This requires the humility to admit that you don’t have all the answers and truth can be found in unlikely places.
• If possible, take notes– Our minds tend to wander and we are quick to forget. Taking notes helps with both.
• Take action– Jesus said that anyone who hears his words yet doesn’t act on them is like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand. When storms come, the house collapsed (Matthew 7:26-27). Imagine a parent who told their kid to clean their room, ony to find the room still a pigsty at the end of the day. The child might’ve heard the parent, but they did not listen.

Do Your Best

There is an amusing story from my childhood when I asked my mom what would happen if I ever got an F in a class.

She said, “I would be disappointed because didn’t do your best.”

I asked, “What if I tried my hardest and the best I could do was an F?”

“That wouldn’t happen.”

“But what if it did?”

“It wouldn’t.”

“But what if it did?”

As you can imagine, this conversation could have gone on forever without getting anywhere. But it brings up a good question to reflect on whenever a task is completed: Did I genuinely give it my best?

A hidden blessing of failures is that it requires us to examine what went wrong. In sports, you can beat a bad team without giving it your best effort. You can also do everything in your power and still lose to a better team. When you win, you tend not to question the results. When you lose, you are forced to ask yourself difficult questions. Here are some questions to ponder whenever it is time to review:

• How was my preparation?– Imagine a football team that goes into a game without watching any of their opponent’s film. They might try their hardest during the game, but they didn’t do the necessary preparations. There is truth in the saying, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”
• How did I respond to adversity (internal and external)?– Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” How do you respond when things didn’t go according to plan? Did you respond with hope and courage, or did you give up and lose heart?
• Did I give in to fear?– Fear can keep us from taking meaningful action. I had teammates in high school who held back in practice and games because they were afraid of giving everything they had and feeling the disappointment of failure. Failure doesn’t hurt as much when you don’t invest your whole heart. The definition of courage isn’t being fearless, rather it is persevering in the face of fear. I think there is value in naming your fears. It’s harder to fight an enemy that you can’t see.
• What things were outside of my control?– Sometimes life happens. You get sick. Your car breaks down. There is a family emergency. During high school track I got sick with mono. Giving it my best effort looked a lot different after I was sick. That doesn’t mean we should use these as excuses, but I think it is important to name what is and isn’t in our control in order to assess the situation more fairly.
• Did I prioritize the most important things?– We can do a lot of things right, but if good things keep us from the best things, we are still falling short of our calling. (See the matrix below.)
• What distracted me?– This is related to the previous question. If you didn’t prioritize the most important things, what was it that distracted you? Were they urgent things that weren’t important? Were they time-wasters like TV or social media? Did you spend too much time gossiping with coworkers? What kept you from the most important tasks and how can you avoid them in the future?
• Did I ask for help?– I think we often fall short of our goals because we don’t ask for help, either from fear of looking weak, foolish pride that thinks we have all the answers, or maybe you don’t have a network of people you trust. Not asking for help keeps us stagnant. We are created for community and need others. May we have the humility to ask for help when we need it!

Discerning what is Important

One caveat for doing your best is that sometimes we just have to let things be good enough. We can get so fixated on doing things perfectly that we don’t end up getting them done. There are also different responsibilities competing for our time and energy and we have to decide what is most important. A pastor once shared how he preached a sermon without preparing as he normally would because he coached his son’s baseball team the previous day. He didn’t preach his best, but he did the best he could given the circumstances. A way to love his son and the community was to coach the team. To him, the impact he could have coaching outweighed the potential drop in sermon quality.

We must all count the cost. For a college athlete, there might be some weeks that you can’t watch as much film because you have a big paper due. Or maybe you spend less time on a homework assignment because your team was travelling. It would make sense for your quality of work to dip if you are caring for a loved one who is sick. We must constantly be evaluating what are our priorities, and if our actions reflect that they are truly priorities.

Another caveat is that sometimes we don’t have a lot to offer. Every athlete will eventually have a bad game even with great effort and preparation. Sometimes things just go wrong in sports and in life. Everyone will eventually make mistakes and bad decisions. That’s part of being human. I also think of people who suffer with depression or are battling a sickness and have to work extra hard to do seemingly simple tasks. Their best effort looks different depending on how serious their ailment is.

God has given everyone of us great potential and limitations. My potential and limitations will look different than yours or anyone else’s. However, these lines are not set in stone. As we push ourselves to grow, our capacity will increase and our limitations will be pushed further out. May we all have the wisdom and courage to explore those boundaries!

Here is a powerful video about beating perceived limitations and a challenge to give your absolute best.

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Here are three fill-in-the-blank statements to help you discern your purpose:

“I want to live in a world where . . . so that . . . therefore, I . . .”

“I want to live in a world where . . .“

This statement is about desire: what do I want? It should be future oriented, possible, and within your sphere of influence. You can’t change the past. You can’t stop loved ones from dying. It is one thing for me to say, “I want to live in a world where the Chicago Bears are Super Bowl champs,” and another for the Bears coaches and players to say the same thing. There are tangible things that they can do to realize that desire, while I can do nothing but watch and hope.

The statements can be personal: “I want to live in a world where I am debt free, or own a home, or weigh X amount, or can run a marathon.” They can also be larger in scope: “I want to live in a world where people are judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin, or where children don’t go to bed hungry, or where my political party is in control.” The statements can either be short-term or long-term, character focused or something more tangible. You can also have multiple things for the different areas of life (financial, professional, personal, relational, spiritual, and physical). The main thing is to be honest about what it is you want.

The first step is naming what you want.

“So that . . .”

This statement is about motivation: why do I want what I want? I chose “so that” rather than “because” because “because” addresses the present reality while “so that” addresses future hope. For example, one might say, “I want to live in a world where I am a college graduate because my parents expect me to.” Compare that with the statement, “I want to live in a world where I am a college graduate so that I can make my parents proud.” “Because” is the reason you got started. “So that” is what makes you persevere.

This step is important for understanding your own heart. As you reflect you might realize you want something for selfish reasons, or you might find that it is something that someone else wants for your life and not something you are passionate about. Maybe an athlete doing this exercise will find that they want to win conference so that they feel a greater sense of self-worth. Then you might ask that person, “Why do you think your self-worth is connected with a game?” Perhaps from here you can help them see that their value doesn’t come from their performance.

Lastly, often the first answer that comes to mind isn’t the only or the most important reason. For example, a college student might say, “I want to graduate college so that I can get a good job.” Why do you want a good job? “So that I can make good money.” Why do you want to make good money? “So that I’ll be able to support my loved ones.” Keep asking why until you get to what’s most important.

The second step is understanding why you want what you want.

“Therefore, I . . .”

This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where we take action to get closer to what we want. If you want to get in better shape so that you can pick up your grandkids when you’re older, your action steps might be eating healthier, exercising, and going to the doctor. MLK wanted to see a world where every human being is treated with dignity. Therefore, he prayed, preached, organized, encouraged, marched, and endured beatings and imprisonments. His hope for a better future motivated him to endure. If you really want something, you will take action on it. If you say you want to live in a world where your political party is in power, you should at least vote. If you do nothing, I question how much you actually want what you say you want.

There is freedom in this stage to experiment and make mistakes. You might not have a clear plan, but you can take steps until clarity comes. Maybe you notice that you are doing what you thought were the right things but it hasn’t gotten you to where you wanted. That might mean it’s time to persevere, or it might mean it’s time to try something new. As you take action, you might also discover that your desires have shifted. That is okay! The journey is often more important than the destination.

As you probably already know, life is hard and it is full of disappointment. There is risk in naming your heart’s desires. When you do, you open yourself up to the possibility having your heart broken. You may never attain what you desire. The Bears might never win another Super Bowl. But I am also reminded of what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” There is value in the pursuit even if the result isn’t what you want. It is never a mistake to do the right thing for the right reason. May we have the courage to take steps towards what we desire.

The third step is to take action to attain what you desire.

Working Backwards

If you are having trouble naming what you want, I encourage you to work backwards from your current behaviors. Author James Clear wrote, “Your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results.” If you go to the gym a lot, what are you trying to gain? If you watch a lot of TV, what are you looking for? From these examples, maybe working backwards would sounds like, “I go to the gym a lot so that I can be desirable to the opposite sex, because I want to live in a world where I’m not alone.” Or, “I watch a lot of TV so that I can forget about life for a while, because I want to live in a world that doesn’t hurt so much.”

Take a look at your habits and see if they are getting you closer to what you want most. If not, what needs to change?

We live in some crazy times. Through the internet we have access to almost infinite information. We can know what is happening anywhere in the world with just a few clicks. Everyday there are new podcasts, TV series, and MUST READ NEWS. Not to mention the seemingly endless stream of emails, text messages, snapchats, tweets, IG notifications, and Facebook messages. We have access to more information than any other time in human history, but we are also some of the most burnt out, anxious, and depressed people. There has to be a better way of being human.

In The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry John Mark Comer states, “What you give your attention to is the person you become. Put another way: the mind is the portal to the soul, and what you fill your mind with will shape the trajectory of your character. In the end, your life is no more than the sum of what you gave your attention to . . . for better or worse.”

What follows are seven simple habits that have helped me emotionally, mentally, and spiritually the past couple years. Five of the seven take no time to implement. They are small ways to push against the narratives of consumerism, performance based identity, and entertainment addiction that dominate our cultural moment. I’ll list all seven habits here for those who don’t like to read full articles, then explain each in more detail below.

1. Commute in Silence
2. Pray at Transition Points
3. Take Cold Showers
4. Track your Income and Spending
5. Quit Social Media/Limit the Time you Spend on it
6. Don’t Sleep with your Phone in your Bedroom/ Put it on Airplane Mode when you Sleep
7. Keep the Sabbath

Disclaimer: As a Christian, I believe that nobody is strong enough on their own to live a life pleasing to God, or to live the perfect life that they imagine. Every person is made in the image of God, which gives everyone great worth, value, dignity, and potential. We are also finite, limited, and sinful. We can’t do all the things. We can’t go to all the places. We can’t know all the things. And when we try to do all the things it is often motivated by some kind of self interest. I believe our hope is in Jesus. He died to pay the penalty for our sin, rose from the dead in glory and power, and gave his Holy Spirit to empower those who trust in him. That is the foundation upon which these habits stand for me. They are a means to an end, namely experiencing more of Jesus and letting his story shape my life. However, I hope that you find these habits helpful even if you don’t identify with the Christian faith.

1. Commute in Silence

The car has always been a noisy place for me. I would flip through radio stations, blast music, change the station when commercials came on. When I was younger, my family had a sweet van with a VHS player where we’d watch movies even on 20 minute rides. Now that I can connect a smart phone to my car speakers, I can listen to any music, podcast, sermon, or audiobook through the various apps I’ve downloaded. With the infinite options of good things to listen to, why would I recommend going in silence?

I recommend going in silence because many people constantly have noise on in the background to try to drown out what is happening inside themselves. When was the last time you were alone with your thoughts? How did it feel? Was it uncomfortable? The band 21 Pilots has a song called “Car Radio” that illustrates the existential angst one feels when there is nothing distract from deep thoughts. The context of the song is that their car radio was stolen and they are dealing with driving in silence:

Sometimes quiet is violent
I find it hard to hide it
My pride is no longer inside
It’s on my sleeve
My skin will scream reminding me of
Who I killed inside my dream
I hate this car that I’m driving
There’s no hiding for me
I’m forced to deal with what I feel
There is no distraction to mask what is real
I could pull the steering wheel

“Sometimes quiet is violent . . . There’s no hiding . . . Forced to deal with what I feel . . . no distraction . . .” These are all hard things. Silence and meditation aren’t as peaceful as people portray them to be. It is often a mental and spiritual battle. But one that is well worth fighting. So, if I don’t listen to anything, what do I do instead?

Sometimes I pray. I think about the things I have scheduled for the day and ask God to give me what I need to do them for his glory. Sometimes I try to make observations: How many stoplights did I pass on my way to work? What did that graffiti say? Why would someone put that bumper sticker on their car? How many homeless people did I drive by? Other times I just breathe and let my mind wonder. Sometimes it’s on deep things. Sometimes I think about nonsense. Either way, it is a good time for my imagination and creative juices to run wild.

By driving in silence I have found that I am often less distracted and more present when I get to where I’m going. I am learning that I don’t always have to be entertained and my primary identity is not a passive consumer of information. Also, driving in silence literally takes no time to do. All it takes is a little intentionality. Try it for a couple days and examine what happens.

2. Pray at Transition Points

It is so easy to go from one task to another. One meeting to another. One place to another without giving it much thought. And that kinda makes sense. Most people pack their calendars and task managers so full that it feels like there is not enough time to do everything that must get done. However, in all that activity we can forget God– the one who is supposed to be our greatest love. The habit that I’m suggesting is taking a couple seconds in between activities to reorient your heart and mind on God. Here are some ways it can work:

You park your car at the office. You turn off the car, close your eyes, and say “Father, help me work diligently for you and not for man today.” Then you get out of your car and go to work.

You get done with a meeting or phone call and go back to your desk. Maybe you take a deep breath and thank God for what you experienced, then ask for a focused mind as you move to the next agenda item.

After lunch I like to take a walk around the block. Walking slowly and examining the trees, listening to the birds, and reminding myself that God is the creator of all.

When I get home from work, I sit in my car and ask that God help me switch gears to leave work stuff at work and give me the love, grace, and patience to be the husband I need to be.

This habit is easier to implement if you also implement habit one. When there is nothing playing in the car there are no steps to take before praying. From my observations, it seems like most people at transition points check their phone. Who texted me? What did I miss? What did she post? I’m not saying phones are bad, I just think it’s a problem when we go through our day and miss Jesus when we didn’t miss checking social media.

Think about all of the things you do and places you go in a given day and consider how you can intentionally bring Christ into those transitions.

3. Take Cold Showers

On first glance, this habit is probably the one that you think you are least likely to do. You might think, “Yeah right, that sounds like torturing myself, and I’m not one who enjoys torturing myself.” Fair enough. My hope in the next few paragraphs is that you would hold that position less strongly. I’ll start by listing some of the areas that might improve by taking cold showers:

• Environmentally– you will use less water and electricity, thus less natural resources are consumed.
• Financially– See point above. Because you are using less, you pay for less. One article estimated you can save about $86/yr by switching to cold showers.
• Chronically– You will likely spend less time in the shower and more time doing things you are passionate about.
• Mentally– Studies have shown that cold showers can decrease the symptoms of anxiety and depression.
• Cosmetically– Cold water is good for your hair and skin as hot water strips away natural oils and dries hair and skin out quicker.
• Physically– Quickens metabolism, improves circulation, boosts your immune system, improves male fertility, and helps muscle recovery.

The final benefit that I see is more spiritual/emotional in nature. By taking a cold shower I am rewriting the narrative that tells me I should be comfortable at all times. Comfort is not my god. A cold shower is an intentional step out of my comfort zone. I look fear and discomfort in the face and I step into it. The hope is that by intentionally stepping into the discomfort of a cold shower, I will then have more courage to step into other uncomfortable situations in life when they arise.

There are many ways to start your cold shower practice. You can take a normal shower and then finish with cold. You can start cold and then finish warm. You can do a minute of cold in the middle. Or you can jump right in and do the whole thing cold.

4. Track Your Income and Spending

This habit is pretty straightforward, but something I didn’t learn until about three years after I graduated college. I usually had a rough idea of how much was in the bank and was pretty good about not overdrafting myself. But my general thoughts were, “I don’t really know how much money I have, but I know it’s not that much. Therefore, I will spend as little money as I can.” As you can imagine, I didn’t feel much freedom or peace about that. Two things that changed how I manage finances is that I read a book titled How to Manage Your Money When You Don’t Have Any , and started using Mint.

How to Manage Your Money When You Don’t Have Any lists 9 steps of a financial roadmap (these are very similar to Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps:

• Step 0: On a monthly basis, make sure you are not spending more than you earn.
• Step 1: Secure your basic needs: food, clothing, and shelter.
• Step 2: Create a $1000 emergency fund.
• Step 3: Pay off all debts as fast as possible, other than your home.
• Step 4: Increase your emergency fund until it reaches 6-10 months of your basic needs.
• Step 5: Begin saving 15% of your income for retirement.
• Step 6: If you desire, save for your child’s college education.
• Step 7: Pay off your mortgage early.
• Step 8: Express your values with your money.

From my perspective, I would switch I would put Step 8 at Step 1. Jesus teaches, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Where we spend our money shows what is truly most important to us. For example, when I shop at Amazon and go to McDonalds, I might be communicating that I value ease and convenience more than local business and healthy eating, which isn’t inherently wrong, but is useful to know. In order to know where our heart is, we have to have a sense of where our money is spent. Thus, Mint.

Mint.com is a free app/website where you can have all of your financial info in one place (loans, checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, etc.). It tracks the purchases you make and categorizes them. You can make your own monthly budget and track how much you have spent on a given category and how much is remaining. You can also make different goals (saving, paying off debts, investing, etc.) and track your progress. I then take the info from Mint and populate a spreadsheet (template here). When I get to the end of the month, whatever money I have leftover I either save, put towards debt, or give to a charity I believe in.

The bible teaches that everything in the world belongs to God and humans are his stewards (see Psalm 8). The money and possessions that we have aren’t really ours, they are God’s. And God created us to “be fruitful and multiply,” to be productive contributors. We were not created to merely consume. By tracking your income and spending you can become a wiser steward and push back against the narrative that says we were born to buy.

5. Quit Social Media/Limit the Time You Spend on it

I first deleted my Facebook account when I was a senior in college. This was before Fake News, misinformation, and privacy breaches caused outrage throughout the world. My reasoning was pretty simple: I wasted too much time on social media and used it to procrastinate doing homework. I would tell myself that I would just look at it for 5 minutes then get back to work then BOOM! 45 minutes went by without me realizing. I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to delete Facebook if my friend Jack hadn’t done it first. He deleted it because he wanted to invest in the people who mattered most in his life and decided that a superficial connection with a thousand people wasn’t as valuable as 100 genuine connections.

Since then, documentaries like the Social Dilemma (available on Netflix) have shown how social media is connected to a rise in anxiety, depression, and partisan echo-chambers. Social media platforms don’t care about what is true because they are designed to keep your attention as long as possible (and that is often done by things that stir strong emotions like anger or fear). Everything you see on social media is curated to look exactly how the poster wants it to look. You might be familiar with the people who spend 20 minutes to get ready for a “woke up like this” post. When we perceive the lives of others to be perfect, it can make us less content with our own lives, and if those feelings aren’t dealt with, it can lead to resentment and envy.

In an article titled “Social Media is a Public Health Crisis” the author noted some troubling stats. “Our research has shown that some 40% of social media users would give up their pet or car before they’d give up their accounts. And shockingly, more than 70% said they would not permanently scrap their social media for anything less than $10,000.” That is not normal. We were created to live in a physical world, with a physical body, and interact with 3-dimensional people. Delete your accounts with the confidence that you will be able to connect with those who matter most and your status doesn’t come from the number of likes you have but in your identity in God.

If you aren’t ready to delete your accounts, here are some steps to limit usage:

• Set your phone to Grayscale mode for part of the day.
• Decide what is a reasonable amount of time each day to spend on social media (1 hour is about 4% of your day), then tell a close friend.
• Set app timers on your phone to coincide with the time you decided above. There is an extension for laptops called “Stayfocused” which blocks websites after you reach your set daily limit.
• Delete social media from your phone, and only check it on your laptop at designated times. (I’d also encourage deleting email apps from your phone.)

Lastly, I’d encourage you to ask yourself if you really feel better after spending time on social media. My guess is that scrolling through social media is so ingrained in most of us that we do it without thinking or considering what it is doing to us. Life is short. Let’s invest our time in the best things because, “What you give your attention to is the person you become.”

6. Don’t Sleep with Your Phone in the Bedroom/Have it in Airplane Mode while You Sleep

What is your bedtime routine? For me, it used to take my contacts out, brush my teeth, lay in bed and scroll on my phone until I absolutely needed to go to bed. Sometimes it was Youtube videos. Sometimes it was email. Sometimes it was news articles. Sometimes I would play games on my phone. Eventually I would fall asleep until my phone alarm would go off. Then I’d snooze. Ten minutes later . . . Snooze . . . How long did this go on for? As long as I could. The bed was too cozy and the alarm so easy to snooze for me to get up right away. Here are some interesting stats I found:

If you want to get a good night’s sleep, being on your phone before bed is a terrible idea. Too much screen time reduces melatonin, making it more difficult to fall asleep. Also, phones are designed to stimulate your mind, which is not what you want when trying to fall asleep. What might be an alternative?

Before you go to bed, put your phone to bed. Maybe that is in the living room or kitchen, but make sure it is in an inconvenient place where you won’t be drawn to it. I would then recommend purchasing a physical alarm clock and putting it across the room so you actually have to get out of bed to turn it off. I have started placing my alarm clock on the floor so that I can start my day kneeling in prayer and stretching.

I acknowledge there might be legitimate reasons for having your phone in your bedroom at night. For example, my wife and I usually listen to an audiobook to fall asleep. Sometimes we have the phone in another room and connect to a bluetooth speaker. Other times we have the phone in the room. When the phone is in the room, I like to put it on airplane mode so I don’t have to think about incoming messages or be drawn to look things up. I then keep it on airplane mode until after spending time reading the bible and praying. This allows me to let the truth of Christ influence my thinking before anyone or anything else. Checking our phone right away in the morning makes us reactive to the day rather than proactively pursuing our mission and the things that truly bring us joy.

See also: “How to Use Your Phone So That It Doesn’t Use You“- 6 Minute video and “3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Check Your Phone Within 1 Hour Of Waking Up“

7. Keep the Sabbath

What comes to mind when you hear “Sabbath?” Maybe a church service? Maybe you have a concept for a day of rest, but what does that mean? Is Sabbath one of those legalistic rules that Jesus freed us from? Remembering/observing the Sabbath is given in the 10 Commandments and interestingly is listed before murder, stealing, and adultery. It is also the commandment with the longest description. Moses declares the 10 commandments on two separate occasions: once after God freed the Israelites from Egypt, then 40 years later before they enter the promised land. Here are the Sabbath commands side by side:

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.- Exodus 20:8-11

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”-Deuteronomy 5:12-15

In the Exodus passage the reason for remembering the Sabbath was that God built the Sabbath into the fabric of the universe. As C.S. Lewis eloquently said, “You can’t go against the grain of the universe and not expect to get splinters.” When we don’t slow down and rest in God we go against how God created us. When we work for six days and rest for one, we enter into the rhythm of God himself.

In Deuteronomy, the reason for observing the Sabbath was that God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt. When the Israelites were in Egypt, they were never allowed a day off. In the eyes of Pharaoh, they were only as valuable as the bricks they produced. Pharaoh saw them as a commodity, not people made in the image of God. The Sabbath was a declaration of independence that they would submit to God’s rule and not Pharaoh’s. I think many of us today have a little Pharaoh inside of us that forbids us to stop working. Maybe you think you’re lazy or weak if you stop. Or maybe you just have too many things to get done. More things to buy. More people to impress Too much debt to pay off. How dare you stop! However, Christ as liberated into freedom (Galatians 5:1). We no longer have to submit to Pharaoh’s yoke. As Christians, we don’t have to keep the Sabbath, just like we don’t have to eat delicious food at Thanksgiving. The Sabbath is God’s gift to us (Mark 2:27), and something our soul desperately needs. So what exactly is Sabbath?

According to Pete Scazzero, the Sabbath is a weekly 24 hour period where you stop, rest, delight, and contemplate. You stop your paid and unpaid work. You stop performing, striving, and producing. You slow down and rest. Take a nap, sleep in, have some time to sit in silence. Do things that let you experience the goodness of God. Maybe it’s a nice meal, a walk in nature, playing games with loved ones, watching a movie that brings out your inner child. And contemplate by making space for prayer, worship, reading, and reflection. Here are some helpful questions that Pete Scazzero gives us to consider as we begin start our Sabbath practice:

1. What do I need to stop that relates to my work — paid and unpaid?
2. List the activities that create delight and rest for you?
3. How can you structure your day to cultivate a greater awareness of God in
   your life and in the world?
4. What might help you see God’s goodness and miracles all around you today?
   “Whatever we choose to do for Sabbath needs to give us rest and life over time. The challenge is discernment, experimenting to find what works for us and the people we love, what helps us catch our breath and remember who we are as God’s beloved.” Lynne Baab.

Here is what Sabbath looks like for my wife and me (this is descriptive not prescriptive. What works for us will be different for others who have different passions and wirings). We begin our Sabbath at 5PM on Saturday and conclude at 5PM on Sunday. This means that Saturday morning and afternoon is our “Preparation Day” in which we do the chores and errands that we need to do in order to make the Sabbath as restful as possible. For example, if the living room isn’t tidy it is harder to feel rest and peace. We often make a meal in the crockpot so that we won’t have to cook dinner in the evening or lunch the next day. On Preparation Day we ask what are the most important things we need to accomplish in order to enter into God’s rest? We won’t be able to do everything, but getting the biggest things done first is a huge benefit.

At 5PM an alarm goes off on my phone that plays our Sabbath song. We then light candles we set aside for the Sabbath and say a prayer together. Then we either read, talk, or go on a slow walk with our dog. We then have dinner and pick out a movie to watch. We try to pick a movie that is high quality, captures our imagination in a positive way, or points us back to the joys of childhood. We then go to sleep, go to church in the morning, maybe pick up a donut after, then we do things that make us feel rest and delight. We do things like reading novels, doing puzzles, playing cribbage, talking and laughing, going to the dog park or walking around a lake, taking naps, shooting hoops, coloring, journaling, etc. We tend to refrain from email, social media, checking our phones, and we try to limit the amount of TV we watch outside the Saturday night movie.

The Sabbath gives rest for our weary souls. It also expresses our dependence on God. We declare that we can stop working for one day knowing that God is still at work. He is in control and we are not. I have also found that setting aside one day a week has actually made me more productive during the other six days of the week. Knowing that a day of rest and delight is coming, I can work more diligently on the things God has entrusted me to do. One thing to keep in mind about the Sabbath, it is “not to recharge our batteries so we can work harder, but to recharge our souls so that we can live better.”

Lastly, your season of life might make keeping a weekly 24 hour Sabbath near impossible. I think of student-athletes, people who have to work some weekend shifts, and people with young children. There are some legitimate barriers to Sabbath keeping, but what might it look like to take a step toward Sabbath? Could you do 6PM Saturday to noon Sunday? Seven PM to 7AM? Sabbath keeping will take some planning and experimenting, and you might not be good at it at the beginning. But anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. Examine where you are in life, and take one step closer to the Sabbath rest our Heavenly Father offers.

Concluding Thoughts

I understand that I may have given more or less information that you might’ve liked, and that thinking of doing all of these things might feel overwhelming. I would suggest picking 1-3 of these habits to focus on for one month. If you try to immediately start all seven habits at once, you will likely end up doing none of them. Start small and let these habits grow. These habits in and of themselves aren’t anything special. They are not a silver bullet that will solve all of the problems in your life. But I hope that they make you feel a little more at peace. A little more well rested. A little more mindful. A little more resilient. A little more free.

Although I am no longer in South Africa I’m going to continue to use this blog as a vessel from which I can throw my thoughts into cyberspace. The topic of discussion for today is parents and sports, specifically how parents should approach sports with their kids. I have both seen and experienced for myself loved ones holding unrealistic expectations for their kids. Adults may feel angry when their child messes up on the field or court, scream at the kid, or endlessly critique the player when they get home from the game. Here are a few thoughts in response to these people: 1. the kids probably don’t want to hear from you about how they messed up. 2. You probably aren’t doing anything except looking ridiculous. 3. How well your kid does is not a reflection of your parenting skills. 4. Players are going to mess up. That’s life.

1.Here is the nature of sports: when you mess up you know about it and probably feel worse than anyone. The last thing a player wants to do when they get home is relive again and again how they messed up. They know how they messed up, and you lecturing them is not going to make the problem go away or make them a better player. Really all a player wants from their loved ones is for them to say they are proud of them and that they enjoy watching them play. For example, when I played basketball in high school one game I had 35 points but had a rough time with free throws. There were some people who were like, “Good job, now you just need to learn to shoot free throws.” Why did they need to say that? I didn’t want to hear it and it definitely didn’t help me shoot free throws. It was exhausting trying to live up to all of these expectations people had for me that I couldn’t accomplish. I’ll end this point by saying kids shouldn’t dread talking to loved ones after a game. A home should be a safe haven where kids can get away from all the people talking negatively about them, not a source for more anxiety and questions of self-worth.

2. As I alluded to in the previous point, parental critiques are not helpful. I’m sure the coach has already talked to the player about the mistake, so you’re really just beating a dead horse by saying it again. Also, I’ve heard some very unintelligent advice in my life. For example, “Make your free throws!” “Stop turning it over!” “Tackle better!” “Come on!” These are not constructive. The player will never say, “Oh, I see. Since you told me to make my free throws now I will never miss.” No. That’s not how it works. Screaming at your kid during a game might make you feel better, but trust me it is not making them play better. If anything it is making them more nervous about letting you down. So be careful what you say, you just might be sounding foolish and hurtful.

3. Parents, your child’s performance cannot determine your joy and identity. If your kid plays poorly you are not going to be the laughingstock of the town. Your parenting skills are not the reason why your child had a good or bad game. I see this especially with fathers, where they see their son or daughter as a reflection of themselves. They like puffing out their chest saying, “That’s my boy, or that’s my girl”. Really they are thinking, “My kid is better than yours.” Its kind of like when little kids say, “My dad can beat up your dad.” And there is a great deal of pride in that statement, and boy! do men hate having their pride challenged. But think about how much pressure that puts on the player and the damage that can cause. The player is playing for a lot of people: the coach, the team, the school, etc. They know that if they mess up they could potentially get yelled at by the coach, they might upset their teammates, and kids at school might give them a hard time about it. That’s a lot of stuff! They don’t need to add in the fear of letting their parents down to the mix.  I understand that everyone wants their kids to be successful, but there must be some deep insecurities if their worth as a parent is shaken by their child’s performance in a sporting event.

4. This might come as a shock, but players make mistakes. I can’t think of any player in history who did everything exactly perfect in a game. So expecting your kid to do everything correctly is an unrealistic and absurd expectation. The question then is how can parents react when things go poorly? A key thing would be to not bring up the negatives, especially if you don’t also mention the positives. Imagine a parent watching their child in a concert and after the show going up to them and saying, “Man, you really butchered that C note.” You would probably think that that parent is very rude and inconsiderate of the effort they put into the show. So why is it different in sports? After a concert it is expected that you tell them good job, you enjoyed watching them perform, and you can tell that they worked hard. I don’t think it should be any different after a sporting event. Kids should enjoy playing the sport, and parents should enjoy watching them have fun. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t care about winning or performance. Those are important, but they shouldn’t be more important than the relationship that you have with your loved one.

I’ll end with a question. At the end of the day what is more important: that your kid performs well in their sport, or that your kid knows that you love and are proud of them, and that their performance on the field doesn’t determine how much you love them?

Stay tuned for my next post about how Jesus restores these broken relationships.