Scripture: Psalm 37:4; Isaiah 58:13–14; Matthew 11:28–30
Imagine traveling hundreds of miles to a quiet cabin in the woods, hoping to have a life-changing encounter with God. You're away from the noise of everyday responsibilities, the emails waiting for responses, the meetings filling your calendar, and the countless decisions that require your attention. There's finally room to breathe, pray, and listen.
Surely, if God is going to speak, this would be the perfect place. Perhaps not through an actual burning bush like Moses experienced, but something close. A dramatic revelation, a clear sense of direction, or maybe even a divine download of everything He wants you to do next.
At least, that's what I was hoping for.
During my sabbatical, I spent time at a cabin in northern Minnesota. After years of pastoral ministry, I was looking forward to an extended season of rest, reflection, and connection with God. But I'll admit something: I wasn't simply hoping to rest. I wanted clarity about the future, fresh vision, and perhaps a new understanding of what God was calling me to accomplish.
I went looking for a burning bush. Instead, God began teaching me something far more personal. He wasn't primarily interested in giving me another assignment. He was inviting me to enjoy His presence.
When Even Rest Becomes Something to Accomplish
I've spent more than twenty years in ministry, serving in different roles, leading teams, preaching sermons, and helping people navigate important seasons of their lives. I love what I do. I genuinely enjoy leading, creating, solving problems, and helping people discover the hope of Jesus.
But there's another part of my personality that I've had to learn to recognize. I'm an Enneagram Three.
For those unfamiliar with the Enneagram, Threes are often described as achievers. We tend to be motivated, goal-oriented, and energized by accomplishment. We enjoy making progress, reaching goals, and knowing that our efforts have produced something meaningful.
Those qualities can be wonderful gifts, particularly in leadership. But they also come with a temptation: when you're accustomed to finding satisfaction in what you accomplish, it can become difficult to find satisfaction in simply being.
And that creates an interesting challenge when you enter a sabbatical.
Even rest can become another project. You can approach time away with an invisible checklist: read these books, spend this many hours in prayer, write down these insights, discover God's next assignment, and return refreshed and prepared to accomplish even more.
Suddenly, something intended to help you stop producing becomes another opportunity to measure your productivity.
That's where I found myself. And somewhere in the quiet of that Minnesota cabin, God began redirecting my attention.
The Verse I Had Been Reading Backward
During my sabbatical, I was reminded of Psalm 37:4: "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."
I'd known that passage for years. I've preached about trusting God, taught people to seek His will, and encouraged others to surrender their desires to Him. But as I reflected on the verse, I realized something uncomfortable about the way I'd often approached it.
I had spent a great deal of time focusing on the second half of the verse: the desires of my heart. I thought about the dreams I wanted God to fulfill, the opportunities I hoped He would open, and the future I wanted Him to reveal.
But I had spent considerably less time reflecting on the first half: Take delight in the Lord.
Not simply obey Him or work for Him. Not merely learn more information about Him. Delight in Him. Enjoy Him. Find satisfaction in His presence.
I began to realize that I was often more interested in what God could do through my life than in simply being with Him. And that's a difficult realization for someone who has devoted his life to ministry.
It's possible to spend your days doing things for God while neglecting the joy of being with God. It's possible to know a great deal about Jesus while struggling to slow down enough to enjoy your relationship with Him. And it's possible to become so focused on fulfilling God's purposes that you overlook the beautiful privilege of knowing Him.
I had been pursuing the gifts of God while overlooking the invitation to delight in the Giver.
When God Repeated the Lesson
Around that same time, my regular Bible reading had taken me into the book of Isaiah. And on the very day I was reflecting on Psalm 37, I came across Isaiah 58:13–14.
The passage describes honoring the Sabbath, refraining from self-directed pursuits, and treating the Lord's holy day as a delight. Then God makes a remarkable promise: "Then you will find your joy in the Lord."
There it was again. The language of delight, joy, and satisfaction in God.
Psalm 37 was calling me to trust and delight in the Lord rather than centering my relationship with Him on the fulfillment of my desires. Isaiah 58 was teaching God's people to honor the Sabbath as something sacred and delightful, rather than treating it as an interruption to their personal pursuits.
The two passages have different original contexts, but together they confronted something important in my own life. I was learning that God didn't want my relationship with Him to revolve entirely around what I could accomplish. He was inviting me to discover the joy of His presence, especially when I wasn't accomplishing anything at all.
That was a different kind of revelation. And perhaps exactly the one I needed.
Discovering God Around a Sabbath Table
A few weeks later, another experience helped bring the lesson into focus. My brother and his family are Messianic Jews, and we had the opportunity to share Sabbath dinners with them.
There was something deeply meaningful about setting aside ordinary activity, gathering around a table, and making intentional room for family, gratitude, and worship. The experience helped me recognize that rest is more than the absence of work. It can be a deliberate expression of trust.
We stop because we recognize that our lives aren't sustained by our productivity. We rest because God is God, and we are not. We make room to enjoy the relationships and gifts He's placed in our lives, remembering that our worth isn't measured by how much we accomplish.
For someone wired like me, that's both liberating and challenging.
The world constantly reinforces a different message: do more, build more, achieve more, become more. Even in Christian leadership, we can unintentionally adopt those same expectations. We celebrate growth, measure results, establish goals, and evaluate effectiveness.
To be clear, I believe those things matter. Good stewardship requires intentionality, excellence, and accountability. But if we're not careful, we can begin measuring our spiritual lives by the same standards we use to evaluate organizational success.
How much did I accomplish? How productive was my week? How many people did I influence? How much progress did I make?
Those questions have their place, but they cannot tell us the whole story of our relationship with God. Sometimes the most spiritually meaningful thing we can do is stop, sit around a table, share a meal, thank God, and receive the moment as a gift.
Rest Is an Act of Trust
One of the things I've come to appreciate about Sabbath is that it challenges our illusion of control. When we stop working, the world keeps moving. Other people continue accomplishing things, problems remain unresolved, and opportunities don't disappear simply because we've stepped away from our responsibilities.
And yet, we choose to rest.
Why? Because the world doesn't depend on us, and neither does God's kingdom.
That's a humbling realization for pastors, leaders, parents, and anyone who feels responsible for making things happen. We are participants in God's work, not the source of it. We are servants, not saviors. And we are loved by God before we accomplish anything for Him.
In Matthew 11:28–30, Jesus invites those who are weary and burdened to come to Him and find rest. Notice that Jesus doesn't invite exhausted people to become more productive. He invites them to Himself, into a relationship in which they can learn from Him and find rest for their souls.
That invitation is not limited to people who are completely burned out. It's for anyone who needs to remember that their relationship with God is more important than their accomplishments.
Rest requires faith because it means trusting that God continues to work even when we don't. It requires humility because we must acknowledge our limitations. And it requires surrender because we must release the assumption that our value is determined by our performance.
Learning to Delight Without Achieving
I've spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to delight in God practically. And I've discovered that delight requires a different posture than achievement.
Achievement asks what I accomplished. Delight asks what I enjoyed. Achievement focuses on the next opportunity, while delight helps me notice what God is doing right here. Achievement looks for ways to make a moment productive, while delight allows me to receive the moment as a gift.
That doesn't mean ambition is wrong or that we should stop working hard. I still believe God gives us gifts, responsibilities, and opportunities that deserve our best efforts. But I've had to learn the difference between serving God out of love and trying to find my identity through my service.
For me, that has meant learning to spend time with Jesus without needing every moment to produce a sermon idea or leadership insight. It has meant becoming more intentional about gratitude rather than constantly anticipating the next opportunity. And it has meant practicing rest without assuming that I first need to finish everything on my to-do list.
These aren't lessons I've mastered. They're lessons I'm still learning, and that's part of why the word delight has become so meaningful in this season.
The Revelation I Didn't Expect
I wonder how many of us approach God the way I approached that cabin in Minnesota. We come with expectations, hoping He'll resolve a problem, clarify a decision, open a door, or fulfill a desire.
There's nothing wrong with bringing those requests to Him. Scripture invites us to pray and trust God with our needs. But what if, sometimes, God wants to give us something different from what we've come seeking?
What if we're asking for clarity, and He's inviting us into deeper intimacy? What if we're asking for the next assignment, and He's teaching us to rest? What if we're asking Him to fulfill our desires, and He's teaching us to delight in Him?
Perhaps the greatest gift God wants to give us isn't the next thing we'll accomplish. Perhaps it's a deeper experience of His presence.
I went looking for a burning bush. Instead, God met me through Scripture, quiet reflection, and a Sabbath table. He reminded me that before I am a pastor, leader, speaker, husband, or father, I am someone who has been invited into a relationship with Jesus.
I don't have to achieve something to enjoy Him. I can simply be with Him.
And perhaps that's a question worth considering for all of us: Am I learning to enjoy the God I'm working so hard to serve?
Sometimes the most profound spiritual transformation doesn't happen when God gives us a new assignment. Sometimes it happens when He teaches us to stop long enough to delight in Him.
Questions for Reflection
- Are you more focused on what you want God to accomplish than on enjoying your relationship with Him?
- How much of your sense of worth is connected to achievement?
- What makes it difficult for you to rest without feeling guilty?
- How could you develop a regular rhythm of Sabbath rest and gratitude?
- What might change if you approached time with God without an agenda?
