Sabbath

I want to confess I haven't been faithful in keeping one of the Ten Commandments, specifically. I have not honored the Sabbath by keeping it set apart. The past six months or so, every day of the week has looked the same: busy, full of work, not refreshing or life giving, not focused on God... And He wanted to address that.

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The reason for taking a Sabbath, for stopping and resting, seems strange. In Exodus, the reason God gives seems to be that His people are supposed to set apart a day for rest because He rested after creating everything. (Why God rested is another blog all together.) "Six days the LORD made... and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy [set apart]" (20:11). Since we are created in God's likeness, it makes sense that we should imitate Him.

But when the Commandments are repeated in Deuteronomy the reason changes. Moses told the Israelites to rest and remember they were slaves in Egypt and God brought them out of slavery. They must rest because they can't go on living under slavery any longer. (Deut. 5:15.)

I think this second reason is key. People are naturally creative and it's easy for me to get caught up creating, doing, working. Sometimes I don't stop going, going, going, doing doing doing. It's like I'm a slave to work. I forget to rest. Eventually I end up hiding from God instead of walking and talking with Him (see Genesis 3:8...). I neglect to set aside a day to stop and rest and hang out.

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Even today, when I know I will go back to work tomorrow morning, I freely offer people that I can fix their problems while I've promised to sit back and be still. Some people got back to the Castle and found they couldn't log in to the network. I said I could fix it ASAP, and immediately thought, "Oh dear, I'm actually not working today... oops."

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My remembered last night I needed to take days of rest again, and set today aside. And early this morning, my mind was on Sabbath and I decided I would write something about taking Sabbaths for my next update.

I went to church this morning were a number of folks from YWAM Herrnhut are part of, and while I was worshiping, God reminded me of Psalm 46:10 – "Be still, and know that I AM God." I rolled this around in my head, contemplating that I can be set at rest in His presence, and know the I AM WHO I AM. That I find peace and stillness. And then the sermon was on Sabbath.

I laughed. All I could do was laugh when I realized God had set me up, that the Holy Spirit set my mind on taking a Sabbath knowing that I would go to the service about the Sabbath. I felt a peace rush over me that made me know God has me on His heart when He says "Be still."

The whole verse is

Be still and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!

When I stop to rest, when I am still before God, when I remember the Sabbath day to set it aside, I am also glorifying God, exalting Him for the world to see His love. By focusing on Him for a day each week.

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I have more thoughts on this, but I've written plenty already. I am refreshed after a good day of rest, and I pray a day of exalting God. I am ready for this coming week. I will have plenty of network and computer problems to take care of the next few days. The teams that returned from outreach yesterday and today are doing well and happy to be back.

Please pray that the will have a joyous and productive time debriefing and processing the last three months they have been on outreach; for the DTS students presently doing their lecture phase and staff (like me!) to welcome them back and listen well to their stories; help for me fixing IT issues; and most of all for God to be Lord of everything we do.

Soli Deo gloria.

In His love,

Chris