Category: Sabbath

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The Gift of Sabbath

Oh Lord, part of me doesn’t want to go on a quest for grand adventures. Part of me just wants to sit and be near You. Like Lucy in Narnia, leaning against Aslan’s side (and reading a book)! Vacation unplugs from responsibility but you can’t live that way.

That is why I created the Sabbath! For you, for mankind, for human rest. For a mini-vacation every week! Not to burden you with the rule of its observance, but as a regular time-out from responsibility. As a Time of Refreshing. “Church” was added much later. I created Sabbath years for the land, so it could rest, not be worked to death by humans who had forgotten how to rest, how to play. Your sleep is not restful because you allow yourself no Sabbath. You will sleep better all week long if you can create and maintain Sabbath.

I don’t know how to do that. There’s both galleries, there’s the house, there’s…

There’s your health. Physical, emotional, spiritual. You want more energy? More creative ideas and solutions? More stability in your words? Allowing yourself My Gift of Sabbath is the key to all these for you.

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Follow Me

Lord, this morning I had a choice. I could rush off to church or I could sit here with You. Last week I felt the need to be in community, but this morning I felt I needed this most, being unrushed here, with You.

Ours is not a cookie-cutter relationship, a one-size fits all, follow this recipe, relationship. The Old Testament said, essentially, follow these precepts. But in the New Testament, what do I say? Follow Me. Come with Me.

The church has in large part taken New Testament principles and made new precepts to follow, and overlaid those on top of the Old Testament laws—not the ceremonial laws, those the church has replaced with ones of its own. To the extent a community of believers or any church institution is focused on precepts, that is the limit of the depth of relationship with Me they encourage.

To Follow Me is to engage in a dynamic relationship even more complex than any earthly one, for I Am both Parent and Brother, I Am Lover and Friend, I Am Defender and Protector. You know nothing quite like it on earth. Your best earthly relationships mirror one facet of what it means to be in relationship with Me, and that is what I am calling you, calling all of you, to.

How do you bond on earth? You spend time. You pay attention. Other than the parent-child relationship, which begins with the parent as giver and child as receiver, but then grows over time into mutual ways of giving and receiving, the best earthly relationships are reciprocal.

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Rest

Why is it so hard for you to rest?

I don’t know, Lord. Why is it so hard for me to rest? Because nothing, nothing is ever finished. I’m thinking about Genesis—You finished creation and then rested. As a model. Right?

First of all, creation is ongoing. Second, you have scripture that says the Lord never sleeps or grows weary, that I am always watching over My creation. So maybe you need a new definition, a new understanding of “rest.” Maybe it’s not meant as an antidote to “fatigue.” Maybe labor requires one kind of pause, physically and mentally. Maybe “rest” is an immersion, like floating in water, like soaking in a hot tub, but immersed in My Presence where you receive new creative input. Like plugging in a battery—you don’t have to wait to re-charge until it’s fully depleted.