Episode Transcript
[00:00:18] Hey, this is Shannon Williams, and you are listening to Grace and Grit Mindset podcast.
[00:00:24] And today is going to be a relaxing day because we're going to talk about the mindset shift of Sabbath over striving, you could say rest over striving.
[00:00:40] Funny story today.
[00:00:44] You know, my husband and I live in the country, and it's been. I've been raised in the country, honestly. I moved out of it and lived in a populated area for like, 10 years, and then I came back to the area I was raised in and.
[00:01:04] And it's beautiful. Don't be wrong. We have, like, almost four acres. It's so pretty.
[00:01:09] There's a pond across the street.
[00:01:11] It's not ours, it's someone else's, but we get to look at it and just our. Our land is just really pretty, the way it's laid out.
[00:01:18] Our house sits high up on the hill. It's very, very picturesque and just beautiful out here. However, it comes with these challenges, and one of those is dealing with bugs and animals and snakes and lack of cell phone service, lack of Internet.
[00:01:40] We constantly lose electricity out here. We constantly have moments where we have no cell phone reception.
[00:01:48] So it's been interesting to say the least. And the funny story is this morning, well, actually, for the last, I would say, week and a half, my husband and I have been waking up kind of early in the morning smelling a skunk.
[00:02:04] And it wakes us up because it's so strong. And then you try to go back to sleep and you. You can't because your nose is like, hey, there's something really wrong here. You need to wake up and smell this. You know, so it's. It's been not fun at all. And it's. We have come to the conclusion that it's somehow under our bedroom.
[00:02:24] And because you can smell it really strong right there in our bedroom.
[00:02:30] And. But when you go in the living room or the den or the kitchen, it's not as strong. So we know that it's somehow living, I guess, under our bedroom. And so today, my husband, he woke up before me. I had a rough night, didn't sleep well. Hello, Perimenopause. Can anybody say amen to that? Anyways, so I finally was asleep, and he Woke up around 4. He said the Lord wouldn't. Wouldn't leave him alone. So he got up and he was praying, meditating, reading the Bible. He let our dog outside. Lex L, E X. She is something else, y'. All.
[00:03:06] Lex is not a normal dog at all.
[00:03:10] So she has severe anxiety. I've never seen a dog this anxious in my life. We have to give her. Every day.
[00:03:18] We give her.
[00:03:21] It's not Xanax. It's the other one. I can't remember the name of it because we use the generic off brand, and I can't even remember the Fluoxetine. I think we. We give her that every night. We also have Xanax for her whenever storms come through.
[00:03:34] We have to give her that. One time I took her with me to Arkansas in my car, and she got. She hyperventilated so much, she threw up in the back seat.
[00:03:46] I can't. I used. I used to try to walk her with a leash, and she would pull my arm off because she would see a squirrel, and she would try to drag me down into ravines and stuff like that. So it just got to where I couldn't even take her anywhere because she was such a nervous bu. Bundle of energy.
[00:04:01] It's been better since we moved out here because she has land and she can run and play and a lot of it that helps her get it out. But she just is a naturally anxious dog. And so he let her out this morning, and he said he was sitting there in the chair in. In the den, praying. And he heard, like, this yelp sound.
[00:04:20] And then he saw her take off, and he thought she had got sprayed by the skunk, so.
[00:04:27] Been an adventure, so he couldn't let her inside. So she was losing her mind. Running around circles, jumping, just acting.
[00:04:37] I'm. I mean, like, completely off charts, you know. And when I went outside to find her, she was just going crazy, I guess she had encountered this skunk, and it just scared the junk out of her.
[00:04:51] And it turns out she did not get sprayed. I think she just probably got close to it, maybe, you know, ran through this smell and got some of it on her. But we had to give her a bath, of course, and. But the point that I'm trying to make here is Lex is a very anxious dog to the point that it has interfered with our life. Like, we can't even really, like, leave her with anyone except my dad. My dad can handle her. Or we don't even like to put her in the kennel with. Or board her at a kennel, because she's such a basket case that she, like, almost passes out, you know, the people up there. Like, she's so depressed she won't eat. And when I get her, she. She almost hyperventilates.
[00:05:40] She's breathing so hard, you know, I'm afraid she's going to have a heart attack. I mean, this is what we deal with all the time with her.
[00:05:47] And so I was thinking today about this message about cease striving or this idea of. Or the shift in your mindset of a Sabbath over striving.
[00:05:59] And so when you look at. At Psalm 46, 10 different translations say it different ways. But I love the way that the new American standard says, says, cease striving and know that I'm God.
[00:06:16] Some translations say, be still and know I'm God.
[00:06:22] Some say, I can't remember what they all say, but they're very similar. But only a few of them say, cease striving or stop striving, and I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted on the earth. He says right behind that when God is speaking through this psalm.
[00:06:41] And I love it. I love the translation that says, cease striving or stop striving. And when you look at this word. This is a Hebrew word for striving. When you look at this in.
[00:06:53] In Psalms, you know, I love to pull in these words because very rarely, unless you get into, like, the new American, I'm not. I'm sorry. The amplified version. The amplified version will typically have some words in parentheses that will give you kind of all of the words that are associated with that one word. Because we just. In our English language, our words are more generic. So we have to use more words to describe this one Hebrew word or this one Greek word.
[00:07:26] And so when you look at this, cease driving, it's really interesting because it's very much a picture word.
[00:07:34] And it has some meanings, like to slacken, to be feeble, to be slothful, weak, fail, lazy, seize, drop, fall, limp, hang limp. Almost like what you would imagine if. If somebody was really, really tired and you had to hold them up. You put your arm around them to hold them up. They just kind of go limp in your arms because they're just. They have nothing left. And the picture here that I see is us limply just falling on to God. And to see striving and to know that he's God, that's the picture I think that he wants us to see.
[00:08:22] It has a bigger, a fuller meaning, I would say, rather than just, oh, here, be still, be still is great, but be still doesn't give you the full picture of what this means. This means, man, I am laying completely on you, Lord, because I. I cannot. I'm so weak. I'm so frail. I cannot handle this.
[00:08:46] Like only you have the ability, and you're and he's telling you, only I have the ability. Just lay yourself on me. Just fall limp like wax. Even one of these is like. Like wax, like melted wax.
[00:09:04] And because I think that in our culture, it's seen as very.
[00:09:10] Something not desirable, I guess, to be weak, to be a person who needs things, to be a person who relies on someone else. You know, a lot of women especially, and I get it, I've been here. But a lot of us women that have been hurt by men, we turn into Miss Independent. I think Kelly Clarkson even has a song called Miss Independence. And everybody's singing it and they're like, yeah, rock on. You know, but that's not the way we're supposed to be. We're actually supposed to lean on the Lord.
[00:09:41] We're supposed to just melt like wax.
[00:09:44] To fall limply into his arms and to kneel. Know that we don't have to strive.
[00:09:50] We do not have to figure things out all the time. We do not have to have all the answers.
[00:09:55] That is what Sabbath rest is all about.
[00:09:59] And God established the principle of Sabbath in Genesis. And you know this. I'm not going to go back and read. Read it all. But, you know, on the seventh day, it said that God rested. And this was a principle that he wanted to set up and he wanted to institute for his people. He was setting the standard, setting the example. Six days of work. On the seventh day, I'm going to rest. But this was prophetic because it was going to. It was going to. It did foreshadow what God did, what Christ did on that seventh day for us.
[00:10:34] So this is such good news for us, because instead of us thinking that God wants us to just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps like the culture tells us to do, or he expects us to have it all together all the time, what he's saying is, actually, don't have it all together all the time. Just pour yourself out on me. Just be like wax in my hands and know that I have a plan. I already have a plan. I've already instituted, it's already finished. We're going to look at some scripture about the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath in general and how in Hebrews it talks about it's already complete, it's finished. And that's the reason that we can rest is because what God has already set out to do, he has done. So when you look at this two different ways, okay, so God establishes Sabbath in the Old Testament, right?
[00:11:30] As a matter of fact, let me read to you what he said. In Exodus to them, when he's talking about his commandments, he's talking about Exodus 28, 28:10. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. On it, you shall not do any work.
[00:11:54] Actually, just one second.
[00:12:02] I have so much scripture that it's like sometimes hard to keep it all.
[00:12:08] To get everything I want to talk about with you and okay, so remember the Sabbath day. To keep it holy, you are to labor six days and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work. You, your son or your daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything in them in six days. Then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy. And when you think about this word holy, I think sometimes we don't really quite understand it, but really, it's like this, this set apartness, this not normal. It's like this. There's a uniqueness about this. There's something that's set apart about this day. And he's saying this moment, this day, this time frame is set apart to be holy, to be different. You do not work. You have to trust me on this day. The other six days, you know, you can get out and work. And there's kind of this feeling that, hey, I worked for myself, I provided for my family, I did this. Which is a joke because we never do, but we think that we do, we feel like we have some kind of input there. But on the seventh day, we can't say that we have to fully rely on God.
[00:13:38] And I think not only is it about resting because we physically need rest, we emotionally need rest, we spiritually need rest, but it's also about trusting.
[00:13:48] And that's where a lot of us struggle is, the trust factor.
[00:13:52] And what happens, I think, is because this was Old Testament, this was before Christ, so they're looking at Sabbath as something not there yet.
[00:14:08] God says in, you know, with the Israelites, he says in the Exodus that as they wander around and they don't get to go in, he says that they never got to enter into his rest. As a matter of fact, let's look at that. That's Hebrews 4. I'm going to read this in the Passion translation. Then I'm going to talk about these two sides that I was just mentioning a minute ago.
[00:14:30] So this is the faith, rest, life. This is Hebrews 4.
[00:14:33] Now, the promise of entering into God's rest is still for us today. So we must be extremely careful to ensure that we all embrace the fullness of that promise and not fail to experience it. For we have heard the good news of deliverance just as they did in a day. He's talking about the Israelites.
[00:14:52] Yet they didn't join their faith with the Word. Instead, what they heard didn't affect them deeply for for they doubted. For those of us who believe, faith activates the promise and we experience the realm of confident rest.
[00:15:08] Let's say that again, for those of us who believe, faith activates the promise and we experience the realm of confident rest. For he has said, I was grieved with them and made a solemn oath they will not enter into my rest. This word grieved is not like just sadness. This is a strong, extreme passion. It's usually.
[00:15:31] It's usually anger.
[00:15:34] So it's not just like sadness. This is like, I'm grieved to the point that I'm angry with you.
[00:15:38] So this was a big deal.
[00:15:41] God's works have all been completed from the foundation of the world. For it says in the scriptures, and on the seventh day God created, God rested from all his works. And again, as stated before, they will not enter into my rest. Those who first heard the good news of deliverance failed to enter into that realm of rest because of their unbelieving hearts. Yet the fact remains that we still have the opportunity to enter into the faith, rest, life and experience the fulfillment of the promise. For God still has ordained a day for us to enter into call today. For it was long afterwards that God repeated it in David's words, if only today you would listen to his voice and do not harden your hearts.
[00:16:23] Now, if this promise of rest was fulfilled when Joshua brought the people into the land, God wouldn't have spoken later of another rest yet to come. So he's saying, hey, in Exodus, God tells them, you know, what would Joshua when they cross? Well, in Exodus, he tells them to keep the Sabbath day, but he's also just referring to they come into their promised land. Finally Joshua takes them in so that they should be able to rest, right? But he's saying there's another rest because he brings it up again with David. David prophesies about this rest that's coming.
[00:17:00] So we conclude that there is still a full and complete Sabbath rest waiting for believers to experience.
[00:17:07] As we enter into God's faith rest, life, we cease from our own works. Just as God celebrates his finished works and rest in them, so then we must be eager to experience this faith rest life so that no one falls short by following the same pattern of doubt and unbelief.
[00:17:26] So there is this Sabbath rest that a believer is supposed to have and supposed to live in.
[00:17:33] And so we live on. This is the other side. So the first side was they, they had to have faith that they could rest in God, that He was providing the solution. We get to be on the backside of this, having seen that Christ was the solution.
[00:17:52] So, I mean, I'm just going to say this, and I even feel stepping on my own toes, how much easier should it be for us to enter into rest?
[00:18:01] He's already come, he's already done the thing, he's already gone to the cross for us. He's already made atonement and sacrifice for our sin.
[00:18:09] So now the work is finished. There's nothing to add. I keep hearing this in my spirit, just the Lord just saying the finished work of Christ is done. There's nothing left to add to it. It is done. And I think our striving is some kind of attempt for us to add to what's already finished. Right?
[00:18:31] And when you talk about, okay, well, what is finished? Well, of course we have salvation, Jesus, blood, covering and atoning for our sins. Now we have direct connection back to the Father, we have access to the Holy of Holies, we're redeemed, we get to walk as sons and daughters. We have provision, all of these things. It's all of them that now we can rest because we've been provided for as his children. The solution is already there. So if God's already given us the solution for absolutely every problem we are ever going to face through the blood of Jesus, then why are we still striving?
[00:19:07] Ouch.
[00:19:08] Why are we still striving? And it's because we get into these moments that seem so urgent, so unbelievably difficult. And it seems like there's no solution right there in that moment.
[00:19:26] And that's the moment that we have to learn how to get back into Sabbath rest and to know that we do not have to strive for an answer, that we do not have to go find a solution and make it happen.
[00:19:41] This is a time for us to enter back into Sabbath rest. As a matter of fact, when you feel those feelings of overwhelm, I'm preaching to myself right now because I had a meltdown this week again, when you feel these feelings of being overwhelmed, frustrated, you have anxiety, it's because you've turned again back toward yourself to, to be your own solution or to find your own solution, you've entered back into striving. Let instead of that being a moment that you feel condemnation, let that be a moment that brings conviction and reminds you, hey, my emotions are telling me. My anxiety, whatever you want to call, is telling me that I've turned and I've shifted back into striving, and I'm trying to fix this.
[00:20:32] When God has said in Psalm 46, 10, cease striving and know that I'm God. I mean, there's so many scriptures about. About not striving, y'. All. I could, and I'm gonna hit some of those, as a matter of fact, but I. I just wanted to paint a picture for you because I needed to hear this too. And I only teach and talk about things that God is. Has either taken me through or is taking me through. And I believe prophetically, these lessons that I'm talking about, every week, these mindset shifts, pulling down these strongholds. I believe these things are so important to the heart of God right now. It matters so much to him that you and I overcome this stuff because of what he has for us to do. And we cannot do these things with these brushes. Broken mindsets, full of fear, full of frustration, anxiety, depression, all the stuff, all of it, y'. All. He wants us to be able to move beyond that, Get. Get past these elementary things. He cannot bring us into our promised lands and walking in this place of victory and success and. And he wants. He wants to. To give us more, but we can't handle it.
[00:21:50] We're not ready for it. So he has to get us ready. You're not waiting on him. He's waiting on you.
[00:21:56] It doesn't feel like that, does it? But that's the truth.
[00:22:01] So what if. Just think about this. What if rest is resistance to the world's pressure and it's an invitation into God's rhythm? So. So God has another rhythm, and it's one of rest. And it's such a better place to live than it is to try to live in strife.
[00:22:21] I have seen people, I have known people who. Just being around them, I love them to death, but it exhausts me because they never stop. They never stop. They're always on the road.
[00:22:35] They're always out and about doing things around people all the time. They just, you know, get up and they travel all week, and then they spend one day at home, and the next day they go somewhere. I can't live like that. Like. And maybe that's a personality quirk. I don't know, but at some point, you're gonna burn out. And I think striving always leads to burnout. As a matter of fact, let's, let's even just talk about some of the things that in our culture, because we live in a culture of striving. So what does that look like?
[00:23:08] It's things saying. It's like saying things. I'll rest when I'm done. I'll rest when it's done. The thing you're working on or saying things like, if I don't do it, it won't get done.
[00:23:18] Or we measure our worth by our productivity level. Does anybody do that?
[00:23:24] So the thing is, you know these things. And I'm not saying you don't have these moments where the Lord is saying, okay, I need you to finish this and I'm going to help you. But that's the thing. Thing. He helps you, right?
[00:23:34] This is where you get into your own flesh and you're kind of like working apart from God, working apart from his help. And he's not told you to do these things, but you're just doing them because you think that's what you're supposed to do. But unfortunately, this is going to lead to exhaustion.
[00:23:53] It's going to lead to spiritual dryness and burnout in your life. And you're going to get to a place where you're going to start getting angry and you're going to blame God for something that was completely your fault, you know, because you were overextending yourself, you were saying yes to too many things, or you were taking situations into your own hands, or you were just trying to get something finished. And you just, you know, you were on a deadline. You just push and push and push and push. And, you know, there's got to be moments of rest, even when you're pushing, even when you're working on something.
[00:24:26] I think one of the concepts that God wants us to see, see is that Sabbath isn't just a day, that it's a spiritual mindset of trust.
[00:24:35] And that's what Hebrews is saying. Okay? They were. They were told to rest on one day of the week. We're told to rest on an ongoing basis. We don't just have a Sunday where we have a Sabbath, which I think is great. And I think physically we need that. We have a spiritual Sabbath that goes on 24 7, 365 days a week.
[00:24:57] And I think we need to remember, you know, in order to keep yourself in this place of Sabbath, you have to. You have to tell Yourself, Okay, God's working even when I'm not. Even when I'm not working, he is always working. Jesus said, my Father is always working.
[00:25:17] So it's a. It's a. It's a command to rest. I think that, you know, he gives this commandment in the Old Testament, and I think it's still there. It's. It's. Jesus didn't come to abolish the law. He came to fulfill it.
[00:25:35] And so I think anyone who's walking in step with the Holy Spirit is still going to feel, hey, I still need to do this. Like, the Holy Spirit is telling me I need to rest. This is still part of God's what he wants me to do.
[00:25:50] But it's not like now it's written on my heart. I want to do it because I feel like this is what he wants me to do. It does require faith.
[00:25:59] It's a declaration that says, God can do more with my obedience than I can do with my hustle.
[00:26:05] That's hard.
[00:26:07] God can do more with your obedience than he can do with your hustle.
[00:26:11] And you have to let go of that fear of falling behind when you're resting. I have a hard time with that.
[00:26:18] Like, when I'm in go mode as far as being artistic, and I'm like, if I'm writing a book or if I'm working on these podcasts, because I've got two going, I can just stay up for hours and hours and hours, just, just make, you know, getting. Creating new ideas, creating graphics, getting an outline for something. And then I'm like, oh, what if I create this to go with that resource? And then I could do this. This. I mean, I could literally do this 24 hours a day.
[00:26:44] And I feel like if I don't do it all right now, that it won't get done. And that's a lie because you're. You're not your work. I'm not my work.
[00:26:54] We are not just a to do list.
[00:26:56] We are not just about what we produce.
[00:26:59] We. We are so much more than that. And our relationship with him and that feeling of being at rest is more important than you hustling all the time. So I think I'm going to end this episode with just some super practical ways of how. How to embrace Sabbath and be more intentional about it.
[00:27:22] You know, one of the things I did that, and I love to do this. It. Here's my. Here's me telling on myself, I just haven't made time and I haven't been intentional, but I have A friend who has some cabins, and they're like prayer cabins. And it's so amazing. I've been out there a couple times and I went out there to write and just seek the Lord. And I mean, I. I was so rested after just a couple of days. It was such a beautiful Sabbath time for me.
[00:27:50] I would encourage that, you know, you could possibly go with your spouse if you're married or if you're not, maybe go with a friend or go by yourself. Find a place where you can go for a couple days and literally just unplug.
[00:28:05] But you've got to build intentional rest into your week. And not just on Sundays.
[00:28:11] Of course, you need to have that one day a week where you do rest. But I think there's moments during the week where, whether that be you turning on some worship music or if you're a musician sitting down with no agenda other than just playing and worshiping, because that's rest.
[00:28:29] It really is not running straight into God's presence and begging him for things, but just being like, I'm just gonna sit here for a minute, Lord.
[00:28:41] I'm just gonna sit here and I'm just gonna seek you and I'm gonna listen to you and I'm not gonna ask you for anything. I just want to enjoy your presence.
[00:28:50] That kind of approach, practicing stillness before you do something. So. So maybe starting your day in silence, which works for me because I'm pretty quiet in the morning anyways. But starting that reminder in your head of just, I'm gonna be still before the Lord and maybe setting a timer on your clock, which is what I do, and meditate.
[00:29:15] After I've. After I've read some scripture and prayed a little bit, I'll set my timer to meditate. And I'm just, just like not trying to produce something. I'm just there. I'm just still before the Lord. I may be thinking about a scripture or whatever.
[00:29:29] It may just be nothing. I'm just sitting there waiting, and he'll give me a vision. He'll give me something. And it's so encouraging.
[00:29:37] I think here's one that's really important. Setting boundaries with work, ministry, and people pleasing man.
[00:29:44] Something that's gonna rob you of your Sabbath rest and put you right back into striving is doing too much work, too much ministry or people pleasing.
[00:29:54] And I think people pleasing is its own message and teaching. I just cannot tell you how.
[00:30:03] How I was such a people pleaser and didn't know it, but I've had to learn how to.
[00:30:10] How to walk away from that and say no sometimes.
[00:30:14] And that's the next one. Say no to good things to protect God things. Not every single thing that someone brings to you is something you need to do. And you can't say yes out of obligation or yes out of feeling guilty.
[00:30:29] That's not a good motivator. The motivator has to be, hey, the Lord, I feel passion for this. I feel the Lord telling me to do it, not you feeling guilty if you don't do it. Because that's going to straight get you into strife again.
[00:30:43] So, yeah, so I just, I just pray that this message will set you free in some ways to just get back into Sabbath rest, to get into a routine of that, to look for ways to, hey, intentionally rest, you know, maybe take a nap, for crying out loud.
[00:31:04] So here's a good challenge for you to maybe block one full hour for Sabbath style rest. And that can look like no screens, no task, just you and God. Wow. Can you imagine not having your phone, not having the TV on, like, and you're literally just sitting there meditating on God.
[00:31:26] That is rest, friend.
[00:31:28] And I, I hope that this message helps you a little bit this week. There's so many scriptures I wanted to go into, but what I wanted to say is I'm going to have a resource, probably like a Google Doc. I'll throw it in the show notes and you can go there and what it is, it's just, it's just scripture reminders on cute little artsy cards. You could print that stuff out on maybe like thicker paper and cut them out. There's like four on each page. You can cut that out and put that where you can see it. Remind yourself, I'm actually going to do that this week. I really am. I'm going to print that stuff out for myself because. Because I need to be reminded of this when I have a panic attack, when I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to get through this situation.
[00:32:09] I need to, I need to cease striving and know that it's finished, it's already done. I'm just waiting on him to manifest that.
[00:32:17] So, hey, I hope this helps you remember to just help me out with liking or sharing this and following the podcast, giving me a review, a good review, hopefully that helps me so much. You can always go to shannastrange.net see some resources that I have there for you. And with that, I pray you guys have a good week and I'll see you soon.
[00:32:54] He's coming for me saying that Always alive.
