There is something sacred about the silence. A space where it can seem like time stand still and there is nothing that is distracting you from anything, a place where you can simply be. However, this is extremely hard for many of us, I struggle with it from time to time, but I’m learning more and more to love the silence.
One thing that we (my co-leaders and I) are trying to impart to the squad is learning what it looks like to keep the Sabbath. There are many things that distract us, and pull us away from truly taking a Sabbath for ourselves. The ironic thing is that in Exodus 20, aka the ten commandments, it is the longest commandment, probably because the Lord knew we would struggle with it the most.
I must confess to you, I thought that I did a good job of taking a Sabbath, but as I have been learning what it looks like, how to take it and what it means for today, I have come to realize that I truly don’t. The beauty of this process is that we, myself, my co-leaders, the rest of the squad are all learning together as the body of what this looks like.
Here are some things that I am currently learning about the Sabbath:
- Keep it holy, this means that my priority is the Lord and not an agenda. In other words keeping it sacred, so regarding the day with great respect and reverence, seeing it as too valuable to be interfered with. Meaning, I am willing to set everything else aside so that He and I can spend quality time together, which means yes, sacrificing time elsewhere so that we can commune together.
- It begins from rest, not work to rest. Adam and God got to spend their first day together because God took the whole day off, it was just a Father and son, God’s design was that Adam would work from the overflow of relationship. Because burnout happens when our doing exceeds our being. God told both Adam and Eve “to be fruitful…”, He never said “do fruitful…” Plus rest is a beautiful thing, its like an all inclusive vacation where all you have to worry about is what you eat, it’s God ministering to us.
- Just as a garden requires constant maintenance so does this heart. God desires relationship that is simply communing with me. I try to impress and perform for God, but, He has never put pressures on me to perform, or to have everything perfect, He just loves joining me in the process of things. To actually open up our hands and allow Him to minister to us, because the pressure of the world is a lot but the presence inside of us is greater
- “God is more concerned with what we become than what we do”-Dallas Willard
- Honest communication is necessary. Just as the Psalms aren’t a tame book of prayers, mine shouldn’t be either. God invites us to walk with Him in our messiness and our honesty. The thing that I have been wrestling with is, if indeed He is good. Which means that I also learn the difference between repenting for a behavior, which gains little traction, verses a belief system of what I believe of the Father; and this is where true change happens.
These are just a few little nuggets that I’ve been able to pull out of my time when I’ve done Sabbath. There is much more to learn but, I’m beginning to understand more why the Lord made the Sabbath day holy, and to me anyways, its because He wanted to put everything else aside so that He could simply just be with us, and wow what a beautiful and loving thing for a Father to do, to show us our value, that He loved us so much that He bankrupted heaven so that we could be sons and daughters, not striving for anything and just be with Him.
