make time for Sabbath
As long as I can remember I’ve loved time in nature by myself. The blessing of clean, safe spaces where I can let my mind and body wander in creation is not lost on me. As a kid there was a lake behind my Dad’s church, right in town, with swings and geese and frogs, now we live by Lake Michigan and are friends with old trees and big waves. Time in nature gives me rest and peace. Lately I feel increasingly exhausted by protocols, politics and the news. I’m not the most patient cross bearer and selfishly wish I could ‘fast forward’ a year or get away from it all for a while. Sometimes that means a long walk alone, no talking, no phone, no music to dictate a mood. Just me, creation, and my Creator. Every time I make the time, I'm refreshed. Calm, rested and energized. It is not the woods that gives these gifts, but God.
In family devotions we’re knee deep in the Old Testament. Yesterday Absolom died (and one little five year old mourned him hard!) but today was spent on God’s extensive plans/commands for Solomon’s building of the temple. All the rules for those Israelites! Many of them centered around keeping the Sabbath holy as a day of rest, a day specifically devoted to God. Eugene H. Peterson, a Presbyterian pastor turned writer, spoke about keeping the Sabbath as modern Christians. His quote about Sabbath and creation has always stuck with me. It pops into my mind now and again when I felt ‘too tired’ or ‘too busy’ to get out for a walk:
“If you keep the Sabbath, you start to see creation not as somewhere to get away from your ordinary life, but a place to frame an attentiveness to your life.”
So true! As a nation our society has a strange way of relating to time. We ‘don’t have time’, we’re obsessed with trying to save time, we ‘kill time’, but to intentionally spend time or keep time for God is rare. Often on Sunday we have church, a nice lunch, and that’s about it. Sabbath, check! Hmm, maybe not, for even at church my attention is divided between mothering, music settings, other worshipers, and how I should pick up half and half at Trader Joe’s on the way home. I fall right into the easy traps Satan uses to fill the mind with earthly things, not God.
“Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:2-3
A mind full of ‘to-do’s’, fragmented by multi-tasking and devices, can squelch times of inactivity that let us notice God’s activity. I know this better than anyone! My ADHD mind is never ‘off’. If I’m not careful I have no problem constantly moving, planning three steps ahead, over-analyzing, and responding to people while doing household tasks. Where is space to think on God in all that? No wonder we crave Sabbath.
I head outside to clear my head, slow down and get a break from two sweet but expert mental-space invaders (my children). But I’m actually not “getting away” from life— I’m finding it in Christ.
“Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. […] God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:5, 11-12
He is always there ready to work change, to ground us, rejuvenate us and renew our peace. We’re not Old Testament Israelites anymore (and thankfully too—so much blood!), but diligently keeping space for silence, playfulness, reflection, boredom even, is still just as important. These are opportunities to listen to God and His will. Often I’m so busy ‘being in charge of things’ that I lose my awareness of all God does without my help. Nature reminds me: in unfurling leaves, nesting birds who have all they need, slow moving clouds, sunlight, wind, wildflowers, and butterflies back from the south. :) If this is how He orchestrates in nature without my help, how much more is he doing in my life? How much more is He in control of life and death, an expert in all things, than we?
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. […] ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’” Acts 17:24-28
It might seem like just a walk but it’s more important that than. It’s a celebration of Sabbath, whatever day of the week it happens, where we all we have to do is show up and dwell in God’s presence. Just as you never know quite where a walk will take you, you never know quite where God will lead your mind. He might take me balancing on the curb, skipping rocks, laying in a field and listening to the crickets, or huffing up a hill til I marvel at how out of shape I am :) and the miracle of my own beating heart in my ears. He gives me life, He gives me being. He works all things for His purpose. Make time to rest in that. Happy Sabbath.
O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him.
And he shall give thee thy hearts desires,
Commit thy way unto him,
And trust in him.
And fret not yourself
Because of evil doers
Oh rest in the lord, wait patiently for him.
And wait,
Wait patiently for him.
Psalm 37 - O Rest in the Lord (No. 31 from Mendelssohn’s “Elijah”)
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Had to include this chapter (not the first time, I think!?) because Job is coming up in family devotions, and just because man am I a fan of Job! In a world of ‘science’ and evolution I see God’s brilliance in inspiring this account. He humbles and comforts Job with imagery of His power and design in nature. Hope you can find a few minutes to reframe your life the next time a summer storm lets loose near your house. The curtains of rain, the thunder you feel in your bones— that guy, the one who made that? That’s OUR GOD.
The Lord Speaks
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
“What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!
[…]
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?
“Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
Job 38:1-38