sabbath

Tomorrow is the Sabbath. For the past couple of years I have been working through re-defining that word. I did not grow up in a religiously-observant home. Sunday meant another day off school…or my dad watching football on tv. No thought was given to God until I became a teenager. For some reason, I had a desire to go to church. For years, I went to church alone. It wasn’t until I was 18 that relationship with God became more than going to church on Sunday and trying to be ‘good’. I spent some years in a pretty rigid church. There were so many rules. There was a lot of talk about what I shouldn’t do on the Sabbath…and apparently the only things I could do were pray and read my Bible and go back to church in the evening. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love to talk to God and I value the Word but the idea of sitting all day, doing nothing else…well, let’s just say, I wasn’t drawn to it.

Over the past several years I think God has begun to re-shape my thinking of the Sabbath. Instead of seeing it as a day full of things I can’t do, I am seeing it as a gift. Whether it is held within one day or moments spread out over the week, it is a gift God has given me to refresh, refuel and renew. It allows me to energize through being calm. I can then go out and do what I feel He has asked me to do.

The Sabbath is a gift. This quote says it well, I think:

“I feel as if God had, by giving the Sabbath, given fifty-two springs in every year.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Go in to tomorrow looking at it as a gift God has given you, as permission to rest and relax, to do things that bring you pleasure, thereby bringing Him pleasure. Tomorrow, look for the signs of spring.

Grace and Peace,
Deb