#sabbath thoughts

[marthashlyn]

There’s a whole lot of clairvoyance going on. I also don’t do those things. Long-term thinking. I just.. know. Give it some time.

[odysseyofemily]

This evening, my church conducted a virtual Good Friday service online. It was done via Zoom, as have been all our Sabbath services for the past several weeks. It was lovely, filled with testimonies, scripture, and song about Easter themes. And then they played this last song – and it nearly brought me to tears. 

It’s not what you might think. The song is beautiful, yes. The words, beautiful, yes. But what struck me with so much power and overwhelming depth of gratitude and awe was the fact that, in that moment, I realized that nothing can stop us from worshipping our Creator. 

COVID-19 has brought some interesting times, with churches locked up and fellowship forbidden. I bet you Satan thought he had devised the perfect plan to use this virus to slow the spread of God’s message and discourage His people. I bet you he thought our lack of being able to gather together to worship and sing praises in a sanctuary would mean that maybe we would just slowly stop worshipping altogether. Maybe he was hoping it would just sort of fade out of our lives because the fellowship from being at church has now become a thing of the past. But guess what? This pandemic, this event that has made isolation more prominent than ever, has also brought us opportunity to become closer to each other in so many ways. Closer to our friends – more motivation for phone calls and FaceTime; closer to our families – more time to spend with each other; closer to our coworkers – more deliberate efforts to check in regularly. And might I even say, closer to fellow worshippers from around the world.

Just look at this beautiful virtual choir. There’s nothing overly amazing about it, just ordinary people singing and playing music. But I think it is the most beautiful thing right now. They’ve come together, strangers from all across the globe, to sing about Christ’s salvation for us. I know virtual choirs have been around for years, and this particular video is from several years ago even... but it reminds me that nothing, not even a pandemic, can stop us from worshipping God. Despite their distance, this choir is still able to serve each other and worship God together. What’s most beautiful to me is that it is exactly their distance and separation that has brought this choir into existence in the first place.

There’s no need for us to be discouraged because we can’t come together in a physical space to share testimony and praise. We don’t need that. We are the church, not some building. God is in our midst, wherever we are, even if that’s in the living room connecting to a service through Zoom. 

[harleeday]

The very thing we are afraid of, our brokenness, is the door to our Father's heart.

Paul Miller

[hesable]

You say that you love Jesus, but does He know that you do? 

[elizajanelewisgirl]

Sabbath Thoughts Conclusion

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  On it you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.  Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”  - Exodus 20:8-10

“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,      From doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight      and the holy day of the Lord honorable; If you honor it, not going your own ways,      or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the Lord,      and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,     for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

                           -Isaiah 58:13-14

     I’ve come to the conclusion of my Sabbath series, and I really want to thank all of you who have stuck with me for allowing me to share this part of my life with you.  I now believe that last line of the commandment to be so true: “Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”  It is a blessing, a day set apart for God and his purposes, and when we keep it, we take delight in the Lord and we are blessed.        My husband and I once discussed what we had learned from keeping the Sabbath, and he said that he had discovered how true it was that God has a plan for our lives.  Even though he had always known intellectually that God has a larger plan for our lives, when he saw what an amazing difference keeping the Sabbath made in the lives of our family, it made God’s plan for even the small parts of our lives very real to him.  It made God real and part of our everyday lives in a new way.  I have to say I felt the same.  And now I see that when we don’t keep the Sabbath - whether our reasons are good or not - we always pay a little.  We can feel the difference.      This isn’t actually a new thing.  When I look back on my life before, I see that I was always paying, I just didn’t realize that was what was happening.  Before, I would work and work and then have periods of collapse where things fell apart a little bit.  Don’t get me wrong - this still happens.  We all have periods of time where more is required of us physically or emotionally for whatever reason, and there always follows a time when we need to recover from that.  It’s the larger cycle of life.  (There was a seven year cycle in the Old Testament as well as a weekly one (Leviticus 25:4), for example.)  Still those periods of collapse happen less often.  It’s easier to get through those hard times, and I work better and am more efficient in the good times.     Before I come to a conclusion, there is one last piece of the puzzle that is worth mentioning, and it relates to the scripture from Isaiah quoted above.  When I was going through the scriptures on the Sabbath, and I got to this one, I was, well,  disappointed.  After all, the intended blessing, the Sabbath being made “for us” made me think that the Sabbath should be about whatever I want to do.  As a friend of mine said, “I guess the Sabbath isn’t about sitting around watching Netflix all day.”  That made me laugh, because that’s sure what I want it to be!  And my family struggled with that too.  My son would always be frustrated if the Sabbath didn’t revolved around whatever he wanted to do.      But oddly enough, what we want isn’t always what’s most restful for us.  And it’s a thought that helps us take another step toward letting go of legalism.  The Sabbath can always be a delight, can always be honored, even in the times when it can be what we “want” it to be.  And even though the Sabbath is for us, we alone are not the center of the Sabbath.  It’s about God and his gift for us.  It’s when we honor it with God at the center, the way he intended, that the blessings can flow.  So we can still have a Sabbath, even when it doesn’t “go perfectly,” when the kids throw fits, when we’re in a phase of life where not all obligations can be shed, and when our we have to pull our ox out of the hole.  Letting go of that helps find that last piece of rest in God. I hope this series has been helpful in fleshing out what it means, at any time, to honor the Sabbath and to keep it holy.      As I say each time, I am hoping and praying for you, that you and whoever reads these posts will find Sabbath rest.  I will be attempting to create a link to on my main page, so that if you want to share these thoughts with anyone who needs rest, this series will be easy to find.  And please, use the “Ask me anything” or “Submit” links on right hand side of the main page to send me any questions you have.  Despite my many words there is more I could say, and I would be happy to answer any questions you have about keeping the Sabbath as best I can.  Blessings to you -

“Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.  And you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  - Matthew 11:28-30

[elizajanelewisgirl]

Sabbath Thoughts #4: Resting in Community

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  On it you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.  Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”  - Exodus 20:8-10

     *This is part of my Sabbath series - you can find the Intro, Thoughts #1, Thoughts #2 and Thoughts #3 at these links.

     I remember when I read this commandment when I was younger, the listing of who shouldn’t work - right down to the livestock and the sojourner- always made me want to laugh.  Not because it’s funny exactly, but because it’s unexpected.  It’s a little bit like that last line of Jonah:  “And should I not pity Ninevah…in which there are more than 120,000 people… and also much cattle?”  In the Sabbath commandment, shouldn’t the plural “you” be enough?   But it isn’t.  God wants to make sure we know that “you” means everyone - really and truly everyone.  Moms and dads, aunts and uncles, kids, people who work for us (whether they want to or not), our animals, the people visiting us from other places.  We all rest.  Everyone rests.

     During our journey in keeping the Sabbath, I’ve come to understand the importance of this part of the commandment.  The most obvious reason for it, is to ensure that everyone really does rest.  In times past it would be easy for the head of the house to choose the people he cares most about to get some rest, while those under them are still working hard.  God wants to make sure that everyone is counted.  The servants and the travelers, the animals - no one is left out.  All creation needs rest, and God is looking out for everyone, even those who don’t always have a voice.      However, I’ve found that the meaning goes deeper even than just the admonition that we should all rest.  When I was reading through the passages on the Sabbath in scripture, I was really struck with the way Deuteronomy words the commandment:  “… you shall do no work… that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.”  (Deuteronomy 5:14)  The impaction is that we rest so that the others around us, and those under our authority can rest.  I think I was so struck, because I already had found this to be true.  When we were experimenting with how we could keep a Sabbath day each week, we tried different things.   Because we had small children, my husband and I tried to keep different Sabbaths, because we thought we would get more rest.  It just didn’t work.  It was hard to rest separately, we needed each other’s help, and to have more days where someone was resting was harder to keep up each week.        We also struggled with what day our Sabbath should be.  I wanted Saturday, because it was a more restful day for me, and by the time Friday came around, I was always on the verge of collapse.  My husband wanted Sunday, mostly because that was what he was used to growing up. For awhile, we were at odds about this without really fighting about it, and somehow, even though we were trying to keep a restful Sabbath, it just wasn’t working.  We discovered that if we all didn’t rest together, it was hard to rest.  If my husband is working, it throws me into my normal routine of holding everyone together, taking care of the kids.  If I am working, my kids and my husband are impacted.  I need their help - “Please do…” , “If you could just…”, “Please help me,,,,”.  Our children are under our authority, and they are involved in however many activities we allow and take them to.  If we don’t guard their rest it won’t happen.  If you are a boss, you have control over how much time and when your employees have off.  What you do affects how much they can rest.      We live in America where we don’t like to think we are under anyone’s authority, and we like to be independent.  It’s hard to admit that other people’s decisions affect us and that our decisions affect other people too.  Sometimes it’s true though, whether we want it to be or not.  My hope here is that as you are thinking and praying about whether or not you should make an effort to have a real day of rest, you remember that you are not deciding for yourself alone.  You are deciding for everyone in your household, and everyone who is under your authority in some way.  If you are not resting, they are not either,       Obviously, life isn’t perfect, and we don’t have a day of rest for everyone as Israel did.  Sometimes it’s impossible for everyone in a family to have a day of rest at the same time.  If a parent works all weekend, they may have to have a different day of rest than everyone else.  I guess I just want to encourage everyone to rest together, if it’s at all possible.  It’s amazing the blessings and the building of relationships that can come together if you do.  All of you are in my prayers -

[elizajanelewisgirl]

Sabbath Thoughts #3: What is “work”?

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  On it you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.  Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”  - Exodus 20:8-10

     *Sorry this took so long to post.  This is part of my Sabbath series, the first three are here,  here and here.  I think there will be just two more.

     Following Christ means that we have freedom from the law.  Yet we know that we are not to live as we once did.  Jesus makes it clear that what we do is part of who we are - and we are to be born again, we are to be new people in Christ.  My dad once said something very wise - in a way the law is easier.  We are given rules to follow; it’s black and white - we know what to do.  Being a new creation and a new person?  That’s harder.  We have to allow our hearts to be in line with God’s and allow our actions to flow from that relationship.  We have to make decisions, and because we are not perfect yet, nor are we God, it’s not always clear what we should do.      If we are trying to keep the Sabbath as a day of rest, we inevitably run up against the most practical and sticky question - what is work?  What does it mean that we are not to work on the Sabbath?  The reason Jesus had so much conflict with the Pharisees is that they had sought to answer this question by creating hundreds of rules about what people could and could not do not the Sabbath.  When Jesus “broke” the Sabbath, the Pharisees were angry because he was breaking one of these rules.  I think it’s safe to say that the real conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees was not about whether or not the Sabbath should be kept, but about what it means to keep it.  The controversy usually centered around Jesus healing on the Sabbath, or once because he and his disciples were plucking heads of grain to eat because they were hungry.  Jesus said that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)  By setting their rules over the people’s needs, they had missed the point of the Sabbath - true rest.  Jesus once said that the Pharisees “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.”  (Matthew 23:4)  I think this is what they had done.  Instead of the Sabbath being about freedom and rest in God, it had become burdensome, almost impossible to keep, putting people’s real needs aside for the sake of the law.

     To be fair to the Pharisees, trying to keep the Sabbath made me understand their need to make a list of rules.  I think the Sabbath is the hardest commandment to keep without becoming legalistic.  However, the first step in the right direction is coming to understand that rules can’t be made, because God made us all different, and rest may in fact look different for different people - and that’s ok.  There are some things that I think can be seen as work for everyone - for example, clearly no one should choose as their Sabbath a day when they go to their job.  On the other hand, rules about things like socializing would be more difficult to make.  My own family is fairly introverted, we love to socialize, but it tires us out.  Others may find nothing more restful than going out to dinner with friends.  Figuring out what rest means takes some thoughtfulness and trial and error, covering everything in prayer.  And we must remember that others may do it differently, but are also following God’s heart.  As Jesus himself said about the Sabbath, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

    After reading through scripture and thinking through my own experience, I have come up with a few principles, framed as questions, that help my family make decisions about how we should keep the Sabbath.  I hope that these principles center on God’s heart for the Sabbath, and they can be true for everyone - even though the way they are lived out might look different for different people.  I hope you find them helpful.

1.  Is what we are doing worshipful?  Does it strengthen our relationship with God?

      As I said in an earlier post, I do think God should be the center of our Sabbath, though that does not necessarily include corporate worship.  So in some way, God should be the center of your Sabbath.  For me personally, church generally tires me out.  I’m an introvert, so as much as I love people, being in crowds is tiring.  Also, in times of leadership, what we do at church can be work.  So I prefer to take my Sabbath on a Saturday, that is more restful for me.  However, if our Saturday has to be busy, we rest on Sunday, because corporate worship is still a wonderful activity for the Sabbath.   However, I would like to add that if you are on staff at a church, I do believe you should always pick a different day to be your Sabbath.  Church is your work, and while it is work that serves God (as all work should, honestly), it is still your work, and God desires rest for you no less than for anyone else.  So pick a day during the week when you can rest.      If our Sabbath does not involve corporate worship, it’s still important to stay worshipful and related to God.  That can be done in quiet time and prayer, and in our family we also make sure one of our meal conversations centers on God.  Whatever works for you to remember God on the Sabbath fulfills this principle.

2.  Is what we are doing restful, refreshing, healing, for body and mind?

     This is where things might really look different for different people.  Jesus often healed on the Sabbath, and I feel that speaks volumes about God’s heart for our rest on the Sabbath.  It’s meant to be healing and refreshing.  After the Sabbath we are meant to be ready to face the work and challenges of the rest of the week with more strength and energy, both physically and mentally.  For some people that might mean being outside pottering around the garden.  For me it is reading, being with my family, resting, hopefully taking a nap, among other things.      It also means refraining from doing things that are draining.  Since I started this journey when my kids were little, this was a tricky thing to figure out.  After all, if you have young children, there are some draining things you have to do on the Sabbath and that can’t be helped. Your kids have to eat.  You have to watch them.  However, I began to realize that there were many things I thought “had to be done” that really didn’t.  I don’t have to cook (we either have easy leftovers, sandwiches, or eat out).  I don’t have to do laundry.  I don’t have to clean the house.  I don’t have get any items on my “to do” list done.  And that really does make my Sabbath more restful than other days of the week.      One thing I would stress, is that if there is anything that you are thinking, “I just need to do….”  or “I just really have to get this done…”  whatever it is, you shouldn’t do it, even if you think it will make you “feel better”  or that you will be able to “rest better” if you do it.  I have learned that that is not the voice of God giving us freedom to rest.  That’s the voice of our culture telling us that what is important is how much we get done, that our worth is measured by what we do.  At first it is really (I mean really) hard to turn off that voice.  We really believe that it’s going to be a problem if we don’t get these things done.  However, when I disciplined myself NOT to do those things, I really did learn how to be more efficient the rest of the week to finish whatever needed to be done.  And I also learned that when some things didn’t get done - it was ok.  It’s important to remember - IT WILL NEVER ALL BE DONE.  If we wait until all the work is done to take a break, we will never have one.  That is why God made the Sabbath.  We have to purposely stop and rest, or we never will.  The longer I refused to listen to that nagging voice, the more I was finally able to turn it off and get badly needed mental, as well as physical, rest on the Sabbath.

3.  Does it build relationship?

   I think the one reason Jesus healed on the Sabbath is that the heart of God cares for our well being and our relationships.  (”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”) When Jesus ran across someone who needed him, that might be the only time he ran across that person, and his relationship with them was a top priority.  So when we rest on the Sabbath, the people around us are still a priority.  While we do spend a lot of time doing our own things, I try to make sure to spend time with people I love on the Sabbath as well.  In terms of my family, we try to compromise on activities that are restful for us.  That might be just talking, or playing games, or watching a movie together.  Sometimes that might mean doing something that wouldn’t be my top choice for rest, but the relationship is important too, so we rest together as well as on our own.

4.  It might not be restful, but you can pull your ox out of the well.

     On one occasion when Jesus and the Pharisees were debating whether or not he should heal on the Sabbath, Jesus said to them “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”  Once again, we have to remember that caring for one another is our priority.  If there is an urgent need, even if it isn’t “restful” you meet it.  Sometimes things happen, people need you, and it isn’t “breaking” the Sabbath to help them.      Once again, the key with this is being in prayer, and understanding God’s heart, because he does desire rest for us as well.  If we let ourselves help every time we’re asked, once again, we won’t every rest.  The principle here is urgency of the need.  This is for those things that can’t be done on another day.  I do sometimes say no to helping people on our Sabbath, if it’s something that can be done on another day.  But there are times that things come up that have to be done in the moment.  When that happens, people come first.      I think this finding those boundaries is especially important for people in the ministry.  If you are in the ministry, you need a break from the needs of other people. since it is your job to meet them all the time.  On the day you designate as your Sabbath, I suggest making sure that you have another pastor, or a trusted lay leader if your church is small, on call for that day, making sure that everyone knows that all needs are to be redirected to that person.  You would only need to be contacted if there was some specific reason only you could meet that need - and that should be a very rare occurrence.

  Learning to rest on the Sabbath is a process.  It takes prayer, time, practice and a little trial and error to figure it out.  If you really are searching out God’s heart, over time these decisions become easier.  It really is worth the journey.  If you have questions, please feel free to reach out and ask me.  You’re all in my prayers.

[elizajanelewisgirl]

Sabbath Thoughts #2: Step One - Keep It Holy

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  On it you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.  Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”  - Exodus 20:8-10

     I was once very grateful to have the chance to share about my Sabbath journey in my Sunday school class.  We had a lot of interesting discussions, and I remember one day, someone said, “I think the point is - and I think this is where you’re going with this - to have a Sabbath attitude all week long.”  Actually, that wasn’t where I was going at all.  I totally understood this comment and what it meant - it’s part of the confusion of associating the Sabbath with going to church, with worship.  In that sense it is perfectly natural to take the leap that we should have a “Sabbath” attitude all week long, because we really should have an attitude of worship always - every day and in everything that we do.        Please don’t get me wrong.  I do believe that worship is an important part of the Sabbath.  But God did always intend that worship should be a part of our everyday attitude, even if we set aside special times for it.  However in this case, the commandment is really very clear.  We honor God on the Sabbath by resting.  We can’t have an attitude of rest all week long, because work is also important. If we make something holy, it means we are setting it apart, making it different from other things, for God’s purposes.   The Sabbath should be different from the other days of the week.  The other days we work.  On the Sabbath we rest.  It is important to keep it holy - to set it apart.

     Before I get to the practical aspect of what this means (for that is very important), I want to talk a little more about the difference between understanding the Sabbath as worship and the Sabbath as rest, because this really frees us when we come to the practical application of keeping the Sabbath holy in our culture today.  God gives reasons in the commandment as to why the Sabbath is about rest.  God infused a rhythm into creation.  It’s His own rhythm.  Six days of work, one day of rest.  God created, then he rested and enjoyed His creation.      That is why I don’t think this commandment is about demeaning work, rather it’s about the rhythm of life. God even had a place for work in the Garden of Eden - God put people there to “work it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15)  What changed after the fall was not that we had to work, but that work was hard.  Instead of beautiful, fruitful, creative. life-giving, serving work, it became hard, back-breaking, sweaty, painful, sometimes fruitless labour.  But originally this wasn’t the way it was.  We still feel the effects of the fall in our work, but we can also experience work as it was originally intended.  Either way, work is important.  It’s a necessary part of life - and still can be a good part of life.  But rest is an important part of life too.  We need time to rest, to heal, to restore ourselves from our labors.  And we also need to time to enjoy - to feel the fruits of our labor, to enjoy this beautiful creation God has given us, as he enjoyed it, and called it good.  We need time to enjoy our relationship with God and others.  We need rest.  Throughout the Old Testament we see this rhythm for everything in creation - even the land needed time to rest (Leviticus 25:1-7).  That is the way creation, and we as a part of creation, work best with a time for work and a time for rest.  In fact if we rest, our work is more effective.      Furthermore, the commandment in Deuteronomy adds another aspect to understanding the Sabbath as rest: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.  Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy 5:15)  I think this has a two-fold meaning.  First there is worship in the Sabbath.  We remember God and what he has done for us.  But I also think this means that resting is part of our freedom in God.  When the Israelites were slaves there was no rest.  They were forced to work all the time.  To never have rest is to be in slavery.  When we have freedom in God, we have the freedom to rest as He did.  We have the freedom to heal from our labor.  God is always about bringing us the best he has for us, and rest - healing and restorative rest - is part of that.      So that is why I believe that when we keep the Sabbath, rest in God is our primary focus.  Obviously, worship is a part of that, and I believe that pretty early on the Israelites started making corporate worship part of the Sabbath.  Work is distracting, and when we stop working, we have the time to focus on God in a special way.  But while worship should be a part of the Sabbath, I have come to believe that corporate worship doesn’t have to be.  That’s not what God asked of us on the Sabbath.  The focus should be on rest.  The reason I think this is important is because we no longer live in a culture where everyone sets aside a day for rest.  In fact, rest is not valued.  It’s hard to rest.  We feel guilty, we feel like we should be accomplishing something all the time.  There is a voice in our heads that says “You really should be doing this or that, you’re wasting time.”  But I am convinced this is not God’s voice.  God designed us to work, and to have rest.     So what does it mean practically to keep the Sabbath holy?  What do we do when no one is resting around us?  It was easy to do for the Israelites when the whole community set aside a day for rest.  For us it’s different.  I think the most important part of Sabbath isn’t what day it is - that’s where we can get legalistic.  And if it’s not about corporate worship then it doesn’t have to be the day you go to church.  The most important thing is to pick a day and set it apart as the Sabbath for your family.  This is the first step to keeping the Sabbath.  This can absolutely be Sunday - but it doesn't have to be.  Since no one around us keeps the Sabbath there can be activities and work all the time.  I have found it’s most important to pick a day that works best for your family.  It can even change from week to week.  For our family it’s whatever day on the weekend that we have less things to do.  We set aside the other day as the Sabbath and say no to things for that day.  I prefer it to be Saturday, and that’s what we do if we can.  That’s partly because we are all introverts, and with young children getting up and getting out the door to church really isn’t very restful.  In seasons where we have leadership at church, it is even less restful.  We have to be “on” and prepared.  However, if we do it on Saturday, we still take time apart to focus on God in quiet time and in our conversations as a family, because worship is still an important part of the Sabbath.       However what day it is might look different for you or your family.  If you or your spouse works on the weekend, then your Sabbath should be a day you don’t work.  I also believe it’s best for the whole family to take their Sabbath together if it’s at all possible, but in our culture it sometimes isn’t.  If a dad or mom works on the weekends, but the kids are in school, the kids may have to have a Sabbath on the weekend, and that parent may have to have their Sabbath another day.  You have to do what works for your family.  I also firmly believe that church leaders should set aside a Sabbath day that isn’t Sunday.  Sunday is work for church leaders, and they need rest too.  The Sabbath is a gift for everyone.     The most important thing is to set it apart, whatever day that is.  Keep it holy - that is the first step to claiming this beautiful gift of God for you and your family.  This part can be tough to figure out - but you can.  It may even take some trial and error - it did for us.  I wanted to be Saturday if possible, and my husband wanted it to be Sunday.  We had to figure out why we each wanted that consider if those reasons were in line with how God wanted us to keep the Sabbath.  In the end, as I said, there was compromise.  We had to pray and talk and try things and figure it out.  It may take some time, but you can do that too.  God has a rhythm of life for you, and rest for you.  I am praying for all of you, that you can find God’s rest in your life.  It’s a beautiful gift, just waiting for you.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.”                     -Psalms 127: 1-2