The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath
by Mark Buchanan
List Price:
Our Price: $6.76
You Save: $8.23 (55%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $4.88 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Mark BuchananEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-03-13
ISBN: 0849918707
Number of pages: 223
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Book Reviews of The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath
Book Review: The Rest of God--best book I've found on Sabbatyh
Summary: 5 Stars
Pastor-writer Mark Buchanan has crafted a book that is at once delightful and challenging to read. Buchanan targets the American church-goer with these words: "The world is not dying for another book. Bit it is dying for the rest of God" (1) In so doing he pinpoints the biblical message which is even more urgent for front-line cross-cultural workers laboring under the "tyranny of the urgent" and the "reality of insufficient resources." So how is one to find a day with God in a spiritual war zone, with inadequate laborers, insufficient replacements, and inadequate prayer cover?
His journey from overwork, tiredness, little joy, and stunted joy rings true with countless missionaries laboring around the globe under similar circumstances. He confesses a well-kept secret: "for all my busyness, I was increasingly slothful...I was squandering time, not redeeming it...The inmost places suffered most" (2). I was reminded of conversations I've had with colleagues in Budapest and Boston, Jakarta and Johannesburg, who all said the same thing: "I was doing lasting damage...the pace and scale of my striving were paying diminishing returns. My drivenness was doing no one any favors..." (2). From that common ground with global Christian workers, Buchanan shared how he "learned to keep Sabbath in the crucible of breaking it."
Buchanan understands the missionary-ministry mindset. He rightly recognizes that most of us see Sabbath at something archaic and arcane. Many of us grew up legalistic about Sabbath, a day on which we couldn't do things that we really wanted to do. Instead, he seeks to convince us that "Sabbath, in the long run, is as essential to your well-being as food and water, and as good as a wood fire on a cold day" (3). His thesis is straightforward: "Sabbath imparts the rest of God--actual physical, mental and spiritual rest, but also the rest of God--the things of God's nature and presence we miss in our busyness" (3).
This book will change your mind about Sabbath.
Accordingly, "any deep change in how we live begins with a deep change in how we think" (4). Sound familiar? Any change in our conception of Sabbath begins with fresh eyes, an awakened imagination. "So God in Christ, and Christ through the Holy Spirit, is seeking to change our minds" (7). Yet like Zacchaeus, Jesus not only wants to change our minds, he wants to change our ways. Jesus invites us to embrace "a practice that embodies and rehearses his new way of seeing" (7).
Buchanan starts with a chapter on "Work: One Thing Before You Stop," and follows with 13 chapters that inform what stopping will do for your soul. He invites the reader to stop the legalism, stop to remove the taskmasters, stop to think anew, stop to find what's missing, stop to see God's bigness, stop to number our days, stop to find a center, stop to become whole, stop just to waste time, stop to taste the kingdom, stop to hear God, stop to pick up the pieces, and stop to glimpse forever.
Chapter Two: "A Beautiful Mind: Stopping to Think Anew" caught my time-oriented lifestyle off-guard. "Under God's economy, nothing really changes until our minds do. Transformation is the fruit of a changed outlook" (32-33). So far, so good. But Buchanan continues: "God is more interested in changing your thinking than in changing your circumstances..." All of this touches on the art of Sabbath-keeping. "What makes Sabbath time--whether a day or a year, an afternoon or a week, a month or a moment--different from all other time? Simple: A shift in our thinking, an altering of our attitudes" (33). Oooh! He had me. "Sabbath is time sanctified, time betrothed, time we perceive and receive and approach differently from all other time...We become ourselves in the presence of Sabbath: more vulnerable, less afraid. More ready to confess, to be silent, to be small, to be valiant" (33).
Since experiencing a transformative Sabbatical in my life for six months in 2001-2002, I have evangelistically encouraged hundreds of missionaries to take a Sabbatical. Typically, they laugh politely. Buchanan's words in Chapter 10, "Restore: Stopping to Become Whole," helped me understand the disappointing dismissal of many missionaries to the concept of taking extended time away to spend with God. "I don't think it's possible to benefit from a sabbatical if you've never learned to keep Sabbath. Sabbatical is Sabbath writ large. If we haven't been faithful in the small things, why do we expect to be entrusted with the greater ones?...Sabbatical is just doing dally, for several months of days, what you've already learned to do weekly, for many years of weeks" (147).
Summary of The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath
Widely-acclaimed author Mark Buchanan states that what we've really lost is "the rest of God-the rest God bestows and, with it, that part of Himself we can know only through stillness." Stillness as a virtue is a foreign concept in our society, but there is wisdom in God's own rhythm of work and rest. Jesus practiced Sabbath among those who had turned it into a dismal thing, a day for murmuring and finger-wagging, and He reminded them of the day's true purpose: liberation-to heal, to feed, to rescue, to celebrate, to lavish and relish life abundant.
With this book, Buchanan reminds us of this and gives practical advice for restoring the sabbath in our lives.
Christian Living Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Christian Living Books
A Survey of the Old Testamentby Andrew E. Hill, John H. Walton
Zondervan; Published: 2009-02-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $22.01
Price in other shops:
Steps to Christby Ellen Gould Harmon White
General Books LLC; Published: 2012-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.14
The 1928 Book of Common PrayerOxford University Press, USA; Published: 1993-11-18; Leather Bound; Book
Price in other shops:
A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Storyby Diana Butler Bass
HarperOne; Published: 2010-03-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
Works of Loveby Soren Kierkegaard
Harper Perennial; Published: 1964-10-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
America by Heart : Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flagby Sarah Palin
Harper Collins Publishers; Harper; Published: 2010-11-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In Godby Dallas Willard
HarperOne; Published: 1998-03-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Lifeby Catherine Mowry Lacugna
Harpercollins College Div; Published: 1992-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $78.38
Ruthless Trustby Brennan Manning
HarperAudio; Published: 2004-01-06; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $3.15
Price in other shops:
The Screwtape Lettersby C. S. Lewis
Macmillan; Published: 1982; Paperback; Book
Similar Books and other products
Your Church Is Too Safe: Why Following Christ Turns the World Upside-Downby Mark Buchanan
Zondervan; Published: 2012-03-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.78
Price in other shops:
Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Livesby Wayne Muller
Bantam; Published: 2000-09-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.77
Price in other shops:
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministryby Ruth Haley Barton
IVP Books; Published: 2008-06-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.47
Price in other shops:
Things Unseen: Living in Light of Foreverby Mark Buchanan
Multnomah Books; Published: 2006-04-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.45
Price in other shops:
Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Usby Adele Ahlberg Calhoun
IVP Books; Published: 2005-10-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.39
Price in other shops:
Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Livesby Richard Swenson
NavPress; Published: 2004-10-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.79
Price in other shops:
Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Restby Lynne M. Baab
IVP Books; Published: 2005-01-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.62
Price in other shops:
Your God is Too Safeby Mark Buchanan
Multnomah Books; Published: 2001-02-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of Godby Mark Buchanan
Multnomah Books; Published: 2005-01-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.93
Price in other shops:
Spiritual Rhythm: Being with Jesus Every Season of Your Soulby Mark Buchanan
Zondervan; Published: 2010-08-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.80
Price in other shops: