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These days, it’s hard to make a distinction between work days and weekends. Many working moms and dads find their weekends overflowing with chores and to-dos, and even recreation that exhausts them, leaving them weary.

One of the ten commandments is to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy” but we tend to ignore this need to rest. Jesus said the Sabbath was a gift that God gave to us, but even I am not very good at receiving that gift.

Joy Tanner and her family has been doing a great job at incorporating a regular Sabbath practice in their life. Here’s what it looks like to celebrate the Sabbath day with your family and what it can do for your household.

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Show Highlights

Joy Tanner is the mother of four who has spent her parenting years serving Jesus on three different continents. The wife of frequent LPOP guest Virgil Tanner, Joy and her family have learned to practice God’s gift of a Sabbath day to keep their family rooted and restored in three vastly different cultures.

Joy shares, if you take a Sabbath, you realize that you can stop at the world continues going, and God will still be looking out for everybody. The priorities on your list can really be set aside to rest and contemplate, and pay attention to your kids and to each other.

In the Tanner household, Sabbath begins on Friday where everyone pitches in to cleaning the house so they didn’t have to worry about it on Saturday. Then they prepare Sabbath dinner together and cleaning up after, sometimes even with their dinner guests. This tradition became valuable in making it possible for each other to rest.

Make Sabbath dinner a simple but special event in your household. The Tanner children started looking forward to these dinners because they knew they would get a special drink like soda or juice, and dessert. That brought an excitement and joy to anticipating the day.

Aside from a meal, it is important to spend time together. Joy suggests reading Scripture together and singing, emphasizing the reason why you are coming together to celebrate the Sabbath.

Remember that this is a time in your busy week to have the family all together, so Joy suggests not having the kids sit in a separate table, and really including them in the conversation.

A tradition as well-polished as this can take years to develop and establish, so start where you can. The Tanners built their Sabbath habit through several years.

You have to be intentional in terms of your kids’ discipleship. What becomes their rhythm is what will disciple them and what will shepherd their hearts. So, putting things in their rhythm, like the Sabbath with family, is what will help them understand what they believe in and what they care about, what matters. The slowing down also helps everyone in the family listen and notice each other and notice life.

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