Author Nathan Stucky’s exploration of Sabbath rest, especially as it pertains to youth, incorporates biblical exegesis, practical theology, sociological research, and the stories of dozens of young people he interviewed. His goal is to help anyone who works with young people understand the importance of showing youth their identity is, first and foremost, as God’s beloved children, not as busy workers and consumers who never cease from striving.
Stucky encourages people who work with youth to look at their own lives in regard to biblically practicing Sabbath. “We’ve been willing to work tirelessly on behalf of young people,” he writes. “But are we willing to rest on their behalf as well?”
Though today’s culture wears busyness like a badge, Stucky writes, God invites us to rest in the presence of his unfailing love and “disorienting grace”—love and grace that shapes our identities, through no effort of our own, but through the finished work of our Sabbath-creating God and the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Wrestling with Rest is a valuable resource for pastors, youth leaders, parents, teachers, and anyone else who works with youth or wants to personally grow in understanding and living out God’s gift of Sabbath. If you’re looking for pat answers to Sunday observance conundrums, you won’t find them here. But you’ll discover something richer and more profound that will refresh and bless you and the young people you encounter—a new way to observe the Sabbath in a messy world. (Eerdmans)
About the Author
Sonya VanderVeen Feddema is a freelance writer and a member of Covenant CRC in St. Catharines, Ontario.