"So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God."
—from Philippians 1 in The Message
"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor
and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your
God.”—Exodus 20:8 (NIV)
One of the best things about our home church (other than finding it, of course, after many, many months of unsuccessful church shopping), is that we never know what's going to happen on any given Sunday.
It's not that freaky freaky things ever happen there (thank goodness, it's not like the Pentecostal church I grew up attending where freaky freaky things happened a little too often), it's just that our pastoral team is so creative that no two services are ever alike.
Take yesterday, for instance. I knew something was up when all the lights were dimmed upon our arrival. And when the clock struck 11:00 a.m., rather than our normal praise & worship, there were a few quotes flashing on the big screen about the effects of noise in our lives and then a Rob Bell video presentation about the value of silence, which ended up segueing into a powerful reminder of the fourth commandment that I referenced above.
It's funny because so many of the other commandments are pretty much no-brainers. Don't worship other gods. Check. Honor your father and mother. Check. Don't go around killing people, stealing from them or coveting their spouses. Check, check and check.
But the fourth commandment, the one about the Sabbath, well, that one isn't quite so easy to obey. As a freelance writer and author, so many of my post-church hours have been spent working, making the to-do list for the next week and answering any emails that I didn't get to during the week. And If I'm feeling particularly adventurous, I may even squeeze in a major apartment cleaning and several loads of laundry, and before I know it, my day of rest has looked like, well, pretty much any other day of the week with significantly more NFL football in the background.
I'm guessing I'm not only one who attempts to make her Sunday afternoons "productive," however, which is precisely why it was such a fitting sermon topic. In our achievement-oriented culture, we've all been there, thinking it's all noble somehow. But then the speaker said something that seriously flew in the face of that mentality—"Sometimes one of the most 'spiritual' things we can do is take a nap. And I'll be honest, I liked the way that sounded.
Zzzzzs=holy. Now that's some good math.
When I thought about the Sabbath a little more, my mind immediately connected the Sabbath to tithing. In the same way that God could've asked us for far more than 10% of our income, He could've demanded that we set aside three or four days each week. But all He ended up asking for was one— one measly day. Really, is there anything so pressing in my life and work that I can't devote one day exclusively to connecting with God, hanging with family and friends and yes, even enjoying a nap?
Hmmm, my guess is, yes. I think I can.
So I'm going to give this Sabbath thing a try once and for all. Sure, I go to church, and Will and I have our weekly prayer time together on Sunday night, but what would my life look like if I tried this the biblical way? We'll see. And now if I don't answer your email on Sunday, you'll know why. I'm sabbathing.
