From the Study of Pastor Austin 02.22.2026
Beginning a new habit is like trying on clothes. You don’t always know if it is right for you until that first test drive. One practice I have recently taken for a spin has been to spend the exactly four weeks between my brother’s birthday and my own these last few years in a content fast. While I allowed myself to read and continue to listen to music and an audiobook, this meant completely detaching from the news and media cycle, YouTube, podcasts, and all shortform and social media content. The first time I did this, my goal was simply to strengthen a discipline to watch what I consume. As I have continued to do this, the content fast has transitioned to become more of a content sabbath, and I have gained more and more reasons for doing it. This year, unexpectedly, the overwhelming feeling I had for its duration was one of restfulness. It reminded me again that sabbath principles are indeed a blessing on a limited and wandering person like myself.
The people of God had times set aside to refocus on their Creator and His redemption. They needed that reminder that it is the Lord who sets them apart and sanctifies them (Ex. 31:13). Like God when He rested on the seventh day, the people needed to rest and enjoy God and His wonders (Ex. 20:11). In Christ, the true redemption has come. Rest from striving for peace with God has been achieved (Heb. 4:10). It is finished. Yet there remains a future rest for the people of God when Christ returns (Heb. 4:10), so our weekly rest not only looks back at Christ and His redemption, but looks forward to the promised consummation of His work. We also need that constant reminder that it is God who sets us apart and it is God who will watch over us.
In the resting from the deluge of information, I had slowed down to the pace of wonder. There was no need to be concerned that something might pass me by. Psalm 3:5 says, “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.” If David could be surrounded by enemies on the run and still lean on God to take care when he was not watching, what are the trivial matters far from my home to the Lord? In its place, I was able to more fully enjoy and invest in the plot and responsibilities I had been given. I could get lost in great literature and even found myself bored and giving up many more short spontaneous prayers.
One of the other joys to this abstinence was the fellowship with other people. We all find connection with others through shared experience. It might be just me, but these days, it is easier and easier to have mediated connections. I don’t mean just connecting over screens, but the more insidious kind where instead of engaging with another person soul to soul, sharing personal experiences and ideas, you share what you have seen or heard in response to hearing what they have seen or heard. The result is connection by proxy. Having fellowship with someone else is different than two people sharing fellowship with a third party. I found that without the sedative of constant stimulation, I had richer enjoyment of times spent with friends and other believers. In the Sabbath, that was when God’s people rested from their labor and work to gather for worship of God and to celebrate with one another. They had feasts and festivals for rest and joining together. When they met, they were free to worship God together and truly be present with Him without the distractions of the rest of the week interfering. It makes me wonder what role modern technology might play in our own weekly sabbath rests when we spend time with family and friends and while we gather corporately for worship.
It is in the times of Sabbath, those recurrent times of rest from striving for the purposes of fellowship and worship, that the rest of life, including our work, is rightly ordered. Since it is the first day of the week for us as Christians, it is a reminder that we go forth with our identity firm in Christ and with His work and gifts shaping everything that we do. Digital rests release us from the vise of the “technopoly” and return us to the rightful use of the incredible tools which we have been given within the reality God has created.
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