In the final years of his life, Charlie Kirk wrote a book. It’s about the importance of observing the Sabbath in our increasingly frenetic age; of resisting, for one day a week, your smartphone, your work, the distractions of modern life—and dedicating yourself to what’s truly important.
Stop, In the Name of God will be published posthumously on December 9. We’re honored to share an exclusive excerpt with you today. But first, there is no one better to introduce Charlie’s final message to America than his widow, Erika Kirk. —The Editors
In July of this year, our family was on vacation in Maine. We take only one family vacation a year, for about a week and a half. One night, Charlie came down the stairs, looked at me, gave me a huge hug, and said: “I finished the book.” “I’m so proud of you,” I responded. And he said, “I pray it changes the world. But even if it changes just one person’s life, then I know that I did my job.”
I’ll never forget that moment. It was the culmination of a period that began in 2021, when Charlie, on the advice of Dennis Prager, first began observing the Sabbath, turning off his phone for a period of time every week. Initially, he managed only an hour. But as he discovered that it unlocked a completely elevated version of himself, he began to expand the time, until he was offline from sundown Friday to mid-morning Saturday—and later, until as late as Sunday morning. My phone would be on in case of an emergency, but people knew not to contact me unless there was a catastrophe that couldn’t wait for 24 hours.
During that time, we would rest. I’d let him sleep in on the weekends. The babies and I would go out for a walk in the morning, and I’d have coffee ready for him when he woke. The television stayed off, except for a football game here and there. Mostly, we spent the day praying, going for hikes, sitting in the sun, journaling, detaching from the noise.
Some people have words they use to get them into a specific mind-set. For Charlie, that was Shabbat Shalom. Even at the beginning, even when it was for just an hour, he would begin the Sabbath with that phrase. He was verbalizing something vital: I am committing to a definitive moment in time. Shabbat Shalom. And with that, his weekly mental health vacation would begin.
This, I think, is what saved him from burnout. Charlie didn’t write a book about the Sabbath because he wanted to learn the impact that it would have on his life. He did it because he knew it worked. The Sabbath saved him.
Writing it wasn’t easy. In every page, you can see the depth of theological and scientific research that went into it. There’s an area in our home with lots of plants in it; that was his secret garden. After work, very late at night when the kids were asleep, he would go there. And even if it was 30 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes a day, he would write.
It took him a year and a half to finish the book. That night in Maine, he did. It was the best family vacation we ever had. I keep telling people, if you were to find out you had a year left to live, you would live it like Charlie did: from the presidential election, to the growth of Turning Point USA, to his on-campus dialogues, to the happiness of our family. It was on his bucket list to go to Japan. Somehow, that too got crossed off, along with South Korea, about four days before he was murdered. Charlie’s last year was the best of his life.
There is a reason this book isn’t political. Charlie wanted to heal the country, and he saw his conversations with students on campus as a piece of the puzzle. But when he was on campus, if someone was screaming at him, he knew they weren’t actually listening. When you’re constantly combative and fighting, you have no time to treat other people like human beings. Charlie genuinely felt that if the world had a weekly day of rest, just one, it would be the ultimate game changer.
The call to action here is very important. People will say, “Okay, this sounds great in theory, but how do I do it?” The answer is, it will look different for everyone. Charlie didn’t observe the Sabbath perfectly. There were times when he was traveling and he couldn’t do a traditional Friday to Sunday morning. So he’d have to adjust. But the Sabbath is the one commandment that if you choose not to do it, you are the one who’s missing out on the blessing. Not God. Even if you don’t believe in God, you still have to rest.
The following excerpt from the book—a glimpse of what Charlie learned from his years observing the Sabbath—does not tell readers to aspire to perfection. It offers a simple message: You are worth nothing when you have no rest. Sometimes, you have to sleep. Sometimes, you have to pause.
Above all: There is so much more in life than what’s in your cell phone. Don’t forget to make the time to find it. —Erika Kirk
I write this with as much humility as possible: If I can carve out a Sabbath, so can you.
Consider the demands placed on my time. I lead two major national organizations—Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action—with over 1,000 team members. I’m responsible for raising over $100 million annually. I host a daily national radio program and podcast, produce a steady stream of digital content, and participate in over 100 hours of open-air debate each school semester—debates that are grueling, combative, and travel intensive. Beyond those events, I deliver more than 75 public speeches per year. I’m also a husband to Erika and a father to two children under the age of 2. And yet—I still observe the Sabbath.
Not because it’s convenient. Not because it fits easily into my schedule. But because I’ve decided I must. Because I know that without it, everything else begins to unravel.
I want to walk you through some of the most common objections, hesitations, and logistical questions people raise when considering the Sabbath. My hope is that this will not only clarify misconceptions, but give you the final nudge to take immediate action.
1. “Resting makes me feel guilty.”
For the first 10 years of building Turning Point USA, I worked constantly—Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s Day, the Fourth of July. There wasn’t a single idle square on the calendar. I wore exhaustion like a badge of honor. But it led to physical depletion, spiritual dryness, and mental exhaustion. Ironically, it wasn’t until I began honoring the Sabbath—dedicating one day to the Lord—that everything truly began to flourish. My leadership, our mission, and my soul all experienced renewal.
If taking one day off makes you anxious or ashamed, then you must ask, What am I really worshipping? No idol condemns rest like the idol of productivity. This is the golden calf of the modern age. We bow to output, chase metrics, and sacrifice our joy on the altar of efficiency.
But our identity must be anchored in something far greater than toil. Work is good—it reflects God’s creative nature. But rest is holy—it reflects His sufficiency. The same God who calls us to labor for six days also commands us to rest for one. That’s not weakness; that’s worship.
2. “I don’t have enough time!”
Yes, you do have time. You might be wondering how I manage to do all that I do. The answer isn’t magic. It’s mastery.
First, I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t consume sugar. I don’t willingly ingest things that cloud my judgment or slow me down. Second, I am a relentless time manager. I schedule everything: calls, workouts, deep reading, Scripture study, playtime with my kids, date nights with my wife, even my sleep. Sleep is a forgotten superpower in the West. We neglect it at our peril.
Take out your phone and check your screen time. Unless you work in social media or customer engagement, odds are you don’t need to be on your phone for more than 90 minutes a day. If you’re over that, you’re not “busy”—you’re distracted. I challenge you: Try one week without any social media apps. Delete them from your phone, cold turkey. What you’ll experience isn’t withdrawal—it’s awakening.
Time management is brutally honest work. It forces you to face what truly matters. And whether you admit it or not, how you manage your time is a direct mirror of your values. Let me be clear: I love a good college football game. But entertainment is not the engine of my week. God is. Family is. Purpose is. And leisure—real, restorative leisure—comes after those.
If you share those values, then the Sabbath isn’t a burden. It’s a gift. It allows you to honor God and bless your family in a sacred, protected way—shielded from the world’s noise, nourished by peace. You’re not too busy for the Sabbath. You’re just busy with things that aren’t the Sabbath. And the beautiful thing is: You can choose differently.
3. “It’s too hard to unplug because of my work.”
Respectfully, unless you’re literally running a country, you’re probably not too busy to rest. I say that with love—not to diminish your responsibility, but to call out the truth we often avoid: Work can become a form of servitude when it consumes every hour and robs us of rest.
In Exodus, we’re called to rest because God rested. In Deuteronomy, we’re commanded to rest because only slaves work without stopping. God links Sabbath to freedom. To resist the Sabbath is, in essence, to flirt with slavery again—not the kind imposed by Pharaoh, but the kind we willingly chain ourselves to through unrelenting busyness, performance, and obligation.
I understand that some truly have demanding roles. Emergency responders, medical professionals, and others in crisis-based work—you may not have the luxury of a fully unplugged Sabbath. I get that.
So rather than saying, “I can’t,” ask this:
Can I set up an emergency-only phone line and silence all others?
Can I check my phone twice instead of 20 times during the day?
Can I front-load my workweek, so my team knows I won’t be responding on the Sabbath?
Can I draw a boundary with my boss and ask for space that aligns with my values?
Rest is not about perfection—it’s about intention. The goal isn’t to follow a legalistic rule, but to cultivate a sacred rhythm of freedom and trust. Sabbath is not a burden. It’s a gift. And like all good gifts, it requires humility to receive and courage to protect.
4. “I’ll rest when things calm down.”
I hear this one all the time. People say their lives are too busy right now, but they’ll rest later—maybe in a different season, when the kids are older, the business stabilizes, or the inbox is finally under control. But here’s the truth: This is procrastination dressed up as planning.
A study published in Psychological Science found that 20 percent of U.S. adults are chronic procrastinators. And according to the American Psychological Association, 94 percent of people admit to procrastinating in ways that negatively affect their healthiness, work, and relationships.
Dr. Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University and a leading expert on procrastination, says this: “Procrastination is not a time management issue. It’s an emotion regulation issue. We delay because the task makes us feel uncomfortable.”
That discomfort includes stopping. In a culture where overwork is a badge of honor, procrastination around rest becomes a socially accepted addiction. The price we pay is exhaustion, disconnection, and shallow faith. You will never not be busy. Rest doesn’t happen by accident. You choose it. Sabbath is not about having time; it’s about making a decision to stop even when everything else tells you to keep going.
Rest requires courage. It means confronting our fear that the world will fall apart if we stop working. It means choosing trust over control. And it means recognizing that the things that matter most—our health, our relationships, our spiritual life—cannot thrive on leftovers.
5. “My kids’ sports take up the whole weekend.”
I hear this one often. But here’s the thing: No inherent conflict exists between participating in your child’s life and honoring the Sabbath. In fact, Sabbath is not just about ceasing from toil; it’s about becoming fully present. It is a spiritual architecture that invites us back into the orbit of our families and into the awareness of God’s gifts.
So the next time you’re taking your 13-year-old to a basketball game, resist the temptation to kill time by scrolling endlessly through your phone. Be present. Watch your child warm up. Listen to the squeak of sneakers, the whistle blasts, the sideline chatter. Pray for a safe game, for your child’s confidence, for their joy.
No emails. No calls. No urgent Slack messages. Even for two hours. You may just discover that in honoring the Sabbath in this quiet, unseen way, you’re becoming a better parent, a truer friend, and a more peaceful person.
Too many parents today are physically present but emotionally absent. They sit in the bleachers but never look up from their phones. They miss the clutch shot, the smile from the court, the nervous glance looking for their approval—because their attention is devoured by digital distractions. We are raising a generation starved for the presence of their parents. Not just the logistics of parenting, but the soul of it.
The Sabbath is God’s rebellion against our inattentiveness. Your child may not remember the score of that weekend’s game, but they will remember whether you were watching.
6. “There are many weekends a year where I simply can’t take a Sabbath.”
About five weekends out of the year—sometimes more—it becomes genuinely difficult for me to take a Sabbath. Occasionally, I’m asked to speak at conferences, churches, or public forums that fall squarely on weekends. And in those moments, I face the same tension many of you do: How do I honor God when life won’t slow down?
Here’s my answer: I do everything in my power to plan around it. But when that’s not possible, I get creative and deliberate. If I have to work on Saturday, I take Sunday as my Sabbath. If both days are booked and filled with travel or obligations, I plan ahead to block off the following weekend for extended rest—phone off, no emails, no output.
The goal isn’t a rigid formula—it’s a reordered life. The Sabbath is not meant to shame you into rest, but to awaken you to how much you’ve been missing.
You are also teaching your family something profound. Every time you pause your productivity and make room for stillness, you are discipling your children. You are showing them that faith isn’t confined to church pews but is woven into time itself.
One day, your children will tell their children how you lived. What will they say? That you were always busy, always stressed, always distracted? Or will they say, “My father knew how to stop. My mother knew how to delight. They made time for joy. They protected space for God.”
We’ve been conditioned to believe that our worth is tied to our availability, our output, our visibility. But Sabbath teaches us that your value is not measured by your responsiveness or productivity. It’s measured by your belonging—your rootedness in God’s love.
When you power down your phone, you’re not “missing out.” You’re entering a different kind of time, what the rabbis call “sacred time.” Time that doesn’t drain you but restores you. You begin to see things more clearly—your thoughts settle, your heart slows, your conversations deepen. And most importantly, you remember who you are apart from the endless stream of noise.
Don’t be afraid to turn off your phone. You’re not falling behind—you’re catching up to what matters most. The people in front of you. The presence of God. The peace you’ve been craving.
Let the Sabbath be your weekly rebellion. Let it be the time when the world’s demands go silent, and the eternal voice becomes audible again.