Banished Hero of the Sabbath

In the world of Banished from the Hero’s Party, characters live in accordance with their divine blessing, which, under the leadership of a theocracy, directs them to the occupation they’ll have and the path they’ll follow. In volume 10 of the manga, two members of the hero’s party, Theodora and Albert, are in the middle of an important mission when they take a philosophical break, pausing a moment to talk about free will.

It’s a great question to ask—and the discussion of free will and the church is likely portending future events—but what I find just as fascinating is the characters’ reactions in this scene. The pensive Theodora hasn’t quite thought her own question through, while Albert, well, Albert seems totally lost. These two uber-powerful individuals apparently haven’t stopped to think about why they do what they do or if they even should be doing it; they’ve always just “done” without question.

While we don’t live in a theocracy where our spiritual gifts determine our jobs and lives, it’s still easy for us to slip into a kind of autopilot mindset, moving forward through all the busyness of life without much thought or contemplation. We can settle into patterns and push ahead with the desire to be productive and “good” without stopping to take stock of our work and our paths; without pausing to ask:

  • Am I pursuing this degree because God has put the desire for this field in my heart and developed the passion and ability for it within me, or do I want it for some other reason?
  • What is driving me to spend so much time at work? Does work feel like a compulsion? Is God the one leading me in these long hours, or am I using work to avoid challenging emotions, relationships, or situations?
  • Am I serving at church out of obligation, or to feel included, or to be seen as worthy by fellow members or by God himself? Or do I serve from a love for Christ and his people? Would I still be serving if no one noticed?
  • When people hold different views from mine, is my reaction to judge, correct, or reject them? Or do I try to understand where they’re coming from, asking God for compassion and wisdom so that I might see and hear them with love?

So why don’t we ask these questions? Why does it usually take a crisis of some sort for us to pause and reflect on the way in which we’ve been going? Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside gives us a clue through another of its characters—this time, the main one, Red. As the story begins, he’s left the hero’s party and is now living that “quiet life in the countryside” as an apothecary. While he doesn’t initially do this for some grand attempt to “find himself,” the result is nonetheless powerful. The space Red gives himself allows him to interact authentically with others, think about his past experiences, become engaged, and involve himself in matters that take advantage of his skills and divine blessing, slowly opening up the path for him to become the hero he was meant to be. It’s only because he incorporates these times of pausing and taking stock of his life that he can find the path he was meant to travel.

While taking a retreat, vacation, or sabbatical might seem ideal, it’s not often practical. But do you know what is? The Sabbath! God made the day of rest precisely so that every week, we can pause and step back, rest and reassess. Here’s what Mark Buchanan says about the Sabbath in his book, The Rest of God:

Sabbath-keeping is more than time management. It is a fresh orientation to time, where we think with holy imagination about how the arc of our moments and hours and days intersects with eternity.

What a powerful and vital part of our journey with God! But when we turn the Sabbath into either another day of work or a day of leisure that runs on autopilot and isn’t connected to the Creator, we cut God out of our weekly pattern. We lose the opportunity to regularly invite Him into the work of our lives and settle instead into a compulsive, mindless mindset.

Isn’t it reassuring, then, that from the beginning God has known our tendency to barrel down the wrong paths, and that He built the Sabbath into our weeks to gently correct our course? We don’t need to live haphazardly like Albert and Theodora, or even force a change like Red. We simply need to rest in the Lord; in doing so, we are actively turning to Him to be our guide. We are making a choice to take the Sabbath and rest in Him.

And what’s encouraging to me is that God is also making a choice. He is the Shepherd who, as Psalm 23 so memorably tells us, leads us beside still waters, restores our souls, and leads us in paths of righteousness. He will show us the way. What an incredible thing to know that the God of the cosmos is also the God of personal relationships—He has both the power to move us down the best path for us and the lovingkindness to invite us into his rest so that we may find it.

May you find that rest each week and continually in God—the Lord of our Rest, the Lord of the Sabbath.

Read Twwk’s full review of Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside, Vol. 10 on Reader’s Corner. Banished from the Hero’s Party is published by Yen Press.

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Twwk
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