Since the end of June, I have been on a 5 month sabbatical from work (a benefit offered every 7 years). I serve as an Area Director with InterVarsity, overseeing our ministry on college campuses across Georgia and Alabama. I love working and never quite saw the value of taking time off work to ‘work on myself.’ After serving with InterVarsity for 13 years, it took God getting my attention through various different means to see that it was time for a sabbatical.
It started in a class I was taking on the Gospel & Culture. We were learning about listening prayer, and I had the opportunity to have the whole class listen to God on my behalf. What came next were a bunch of images spoken over me, many of which were challenging in nature: storms, walls, masks etc. Not the kinds of things you want the class to know about you!
It would turn out that the next several months would be filled with those images. Storms in life. A realization of the masks that I wear as I journeyed more with the enneagram. Realizing that my attempts to build an image of success were just building up a wall and that if I didn’t do some inner work I’d get stuck, unable to move forward. A window in work popped up where it made it easier to take a sabbatical (no doubt all set up by God) and so I’ve been in the midst of this sabbatical for about 4 months now.
One of the first impressions I had in sabbatical, without even much reflection, was how much I find my identity in my work. Without going to work each day, finding affirmation in my success, I realized that I felt empty and didn’t really know who I am. So many of the ‘how are you’ answers I’d give people, really related to how I was doing at work.
Working on ‘being’ alongside of ‘doing’ has been, I think, some of the most important work of my sabbatical experience. I’ve picked up centering prayer which, honestly, I still don’t fully get, but I realize that it is a discipline that isn’t centered on productivity, but merely my sitting and being with God. It has helped me realize that I am loved by God for who I am, not what I do. This inward journey has been hard work and I’ve been trying not to just make it one of my achievements (I really am addicted to achieving!), but it’s a journey I know I can’t avoid and must pursue if I am to last as a leader in the long term.
Taking a sabbatical has showed me again that it is good to rest. I hope to incorporate more times of Sabbath, experiences of solitude, times of playing with my kids. I know most of us can’t take off months from work, but we can take moments of Sabbath where we cease from working to rest in God. It’s how He made us: He built it into the very fabric of creation by resting on the seventh day. Will you all join me in seeking new rhythms of being and not just doing? Here’s to hoping I, and all of us, can be a Sabbath people.
– Nick Johnson