Good morning…
“Sue,” she emailed me after yesterday’s message, Pause And Restore. “Thank you for your post today! As someone who too often equates productivity with value, it’s hard for me to rest. I focus on my never ending to do lists and all of the things I should be doing. It’s nice to be given ‘permission’ to rest. It’s refreshing to think of sabbath not just as a time for church and prayer but also rest for your body and mind. I enjoy your posts every day. Thank you for interrupting your sleep to write them. Happy Thanksgiving.”
I thought for a while about her kind note of encouragement. Don’t we all get sucked into equating productivity with our sense of value? I think it is really hard for many of us to truly rest, to disconnect from our never ending to do lists, to empty our minds of all the things we think we “should” be doing. Setting creation in motion, God signed our permission slip for “one day of rest every week,” our personalized prescription from the wisest Physician. I allowed my thoughts to percolate, then I emailed back this soulful subscriber.
“I also love exploring more intimately the concept of Sabbath,” I shared. “Honestly, I was raised to be an every week church-goer, but I have never really considered the art of Sabbath-keeping. To honor God with a day of rest, renewal, enjoyment each week, what might that really look like for me? I am pondering this question with God as I wake from sleep right now.”
“To just clarify one thing you wrote, I don’t interrupt my sleep to write these messages. God does,” I explained. “I never set an alarm to wake in the middle of the night. The spiritual stirring just happens. For a while I lay in bed in a state of peaceful prayer and get up if and when the Spirit nudges. I figure there is something for me to learn from God if I am drawn out of bed and onto our couch. Sitting in silent solitude with God, whatever deep truth fills my mind, my heart, my soul – I try to capture that fresh revelation in words that feed my soul. Then I push ‘send’ and others are also nourished.”
“Combining these two paragraphs above right now, I am wondering if God is asking me to consider resting from my writing on Sundays, which would in turn invite our written word community to rest from the daily habit of devotional reading,” I sensed a new breakthrough. “Each week, six days of doing our diligent hard inner work with God and one day of refraining from that work, letting our souls play in the freedom of honoring God with a breather of a day. Might this become our reverent rhythm?”
“I was drawn to share the VOICE translation of Genesis 2:2-3 in yesterday’s post,” I said. “I absolutely love it.”
On the seventh day—with the canvas of the cosmos completed—God paused from His labor and rested. Thus God blessed day seven and made it special—an open time for pause and restoration, a sacred zone of Sabbath-keeping, because God rested from all the work He had done in creation that day.
“What fun to think of each Sunday as a special, open time with God,” I continued. “Pause. Restore. A sacred zone of Sabbath-keeping. LORD, what might this look like if we truly begin to protect this work-and-rest balance for which we are all designed? These are wonderful thoughts to ponder as we head into Thanksgiving week. After six days of preparation, celebration, gathering with loved ones, how might this Sunday feel distinctively different as a day of rest with God?”
“In Sacred Rhythms, Ruth Haley Barton writes: ‘There have to be times when you sink into the comforts of home and become human again rather than using home as a hotel or a fast-food restaurant; times when you light a candle and find the place inside you that loves and then pray out of that place. There has to be times when you let yourself feel what you feel, when you let tears come rather than blinking them back because you don’t have time to cry. There have to be times to be the creature – softer, more vulnerable and more human – rather than always being tough, defended and in control. There have to be times to sit with your gratitude for the good gifts in your life that get forgotten in the rush.'”
Maybe this is a perfect week to diligently work six days before deepen into the art of Sabbath-keeping with God on day seven,” I concluded. “Thank you so much for unpacking these fresh thoughts with me. Happy Thanksgiving week to you too.”
Might we all be created like the beautiful birthday terrarium I received last spring? Every week the lid needs to be taken off for a set amount of time, allowing the ecosystem to breathe, to naturally restore itself to balance, to grow organically in the pattern set out by our Creator.
…Sue…
