Helping A Generation Learn The Value Of Rest
I am presently writing this blog while on vacation. And I feel somewhat guilty for not replying to email, calling a friend, scheduling the ‘25/‘26 calendar, or writing and posting resources!
This highlights for me one of the critical needs for young people today. The necessary discipline of rest, silence, and the sabbath. It is important to remember that God set up rest as one of the 10 Commandments. So it must be pretty important.
I’ve learned something over the years about the important relationship between work and rest. They are a symbiotic bond of success.
Culture Creates Hurry
In 2025 America, we equate busyness with production. We applaud people who ‘burn the candle on both ends’ and ‘never take a day off’ and ‘don’t need much sleep’ as if they are healthy high-achievers.
With the pervasive influence of social media, the global gaming role-play world, the access to AI, the constant pull of online, and the competitive nature of educational scholarships, young people are increasingly encouraged to be busy.
Couple this with the spiritual vacuum of a generation, and we have a catastrophic climate that has increased a lack of rest and ultimately a lack of purpose, and rising depression and mental health issues in the Gen Z and the Alpha Gen set.
I believe strongly that this lack of rest is another factor we see in unhealthy teenagers
There are many troubling signs that develop from a lack of sabbaoth, rest, and silence. Here are a few of them:
• Poor academic performance in school
• Withdrawal from family, friends, and activities
• Sadness and hopelessness
• Lack of enthusiasm, energy, or motivation
• Anger and rage and aggressiveness
• Overreaction to criticism
• Feelings of comparison being unable to satisfy expectations or ideals
• Poor self-esteem, cutting, or bodily harm
• Indecision or lack of concentration and forgetfulness
• Changes in eating or sleeping or behavioral patterns
• Substance abuse
• Organ dysfunction
• Problems with the family, or community, or authority
• And ultimately suicidal thoughts or actions
Rest Is Spiritual
These should be the best days of a teenager’s life.
Do you know that rest is actually very spiritual? How do we counter the overwork and restlessness that causes so many problems in this generation?
Dealing with the results of restlessness and a lack of purpose and ultimately depression in teenagers can be difficult because young people haven’t developed their brain and necessary critical thinking skills.
A teenager’s sabbath helps their perspective and problem-solving in a powerful way. Young people can become buried under a mole hill and not a mountain if they are careless to take care of their health and critical thinking.
To understand that perspective can lessen the effect of the problems in their life. It can be easy to minimize God and maximize our problems. But, we must help teens maximize God and minimize their problems.
Here’s an easy illustration.
If my hand represents my problem and I place my hand in front of my face I will not be able to see anything. What I have to do is put that problem or hand in perspective and move it away from my face so that I can see.
That is called perspective. Making sure that we do not focus on our problems, but, that we focus on the solutions.
The Sabbaoth
The sabbath has been lost in America.
When is the last time you rested for a day? Can you remember when you last took a nap? Or spent an hour doing nothing. Stop equating busyness with spirituality. Christianity is more about grace and rest than it is about works.
The sabbaoth is a commandment in Exodus chapter 20! God didn’t give us a suggestion. He gave us a command that we would rest.
Faith and rest will be a great cure for the stresses that can cause restlessness and depression.
There are so many scriptures on sabbaoth, silence, and rest in the Bible. Did you know that in the Old Testament the people were required to rest their land from sowing crops every 7 years? What a significant commitment to the health of their land.
Here are just a few powerful verses on sabbaoth, rest, and silence:
Genesis 2:2-3, “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so, on the seventh day He rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”
Exodus 20:8-10, “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…”
Psalm 4:4, 8, “Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah. In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, make me to dwell securely.”
Matthew 11:28, “Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest.’
Mark 3:1, “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”
Hebrews 4:9, “…So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”
Finally
Look at the signs happening in your life. Reread this article again and be careful to take care of your self by valuing the Sabbath.
Next week we will cover a more practical approach to rest.