My son Gideon asked me yesterday if I could juggle. I immediately answered no, as I have never been able to keep more than two balls up in the air at a time. But today, as I stare at the six different projects strewn across my desk, I am reminded that I am in deed a juggler after all.

And as I sit here thinking about juggling, I am reminded of the book our young adult group is studying right now about rest and the Sabbath. I think that many of us have become proficient “life” jugglers, but the key to being not only proficient but productive is to know when it is okay to let it all drop for a spell. We are created to need rest, a time that we are not in control, or trying to play God in our lives.

Rest is a sheer and utter gift. As Mark Buchanon writes in his work, The Rest of God, “Sabbath is not the break we’re allotted at the tail end of completing all our tasks and chores, the fulfillment of all our obligations. It’s the rest we take smack-dab in the middle of them, without apology, without guilt, and for no better reason than God told us we could.”

So next time you feel like you are juggling the world, just stop and let the balls fall where they may. You can always pick them back up again, and send them air born. But even juggling can lose its fun, its joy, and its purpose if we don’t stop every now and then. Life was meant to be lived with joy and purpose, and sometimes the only way we remember that is by sitting on the sideline with gratitude in our hearts and rest for our souls.

December 9, 2009 <> Michael Warneke

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