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The Rest of God

By Mark Buchanan

(W Publishing Group, Nashville, Tennessee, 2006; pp. 220; hardback)

This book, written while the author took a three-month sabbatical, is a collection of reflections on what it is like to find restoration of soul or the “rest of God.” It is not a how-to manual for biblical Sabbath keeping, but how finding God’s rest can be integrated into life.

The subtitle of the book is “Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath.” A few of the chapter titles are: A Beautiful Mind: Stopping to Think Anew; The Rest of God: Stopping to Find What’s Missing; In God’s Time: Stopping to See God’s Bigness; The Golden Rule: Stopping to Find a Center; and Restore: Stopping to Become Whole.

A Sabbath liturgy follows each chapter “giving concrete expression to deepest convictions.” The author provides insight into how to approach needed change for finding true rest.

Mark Buchanan is a very creative and descriptive writer. Not only is the content instructive, but it is also enjoyable and conversational in style. Here is a sample:

“Sabbath … resisted, it backs off. Spurned, it flees. It’s easy to skirt or defy Sabbath, to manufacture cheap substitutes in its place—and to do all that, initially without noticeable damage, and sometimes, briefly, with admirable results. It’s easy, in other words, to spend most of your life breaking Sabbath and never figure out that this is part of the reason your work’s unsatisfying, your friendships patchy, your leisure threadbare, your vacations exhausting.”

The author has summed it up with his “Golden Rule of Sabbath” – “Cease from that which is necessary … embrace that which gives life.” A powerful truth from a profound book.

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