Feast or Famine

It wasn't my intent to go so long without posting ANYTHING at all on this blog. Makes it seem that nothing has been happening. Au contraire, my friend, life and life in Christ go on.

Busyness or business? Both, I guess. With a 40 hour a week job painting, helping transport family members to stores and appointments, keeping up with housework to help my sweetie have a more relaxing evening when she gets home from work, and preparing teachings for Sunday school and morning service--when I have some down-time, I don't know what to do. I get bored!

Yet, right in the middle of the 10 commandments is "keep the Sabbath." Yes, yes, an Old Testament command that we as Christians have no need to keep. After all, it was given to Israel as an everlasting covenant, and we're not Israel. Even though we are not the nation of Israel, there is wisdom in taking the time to do nothing.

But in the doing of nothing, something significant gets done. Dallas Willard says that we are reminded that we have a soul, and that the world can go on without us. Too, the idea of "soul rest", taking time for spiritual recharging by being still reorients us to the truths that God exists, that he rewards those who seek him, and that we show our reliance on him by sometimes taking our hands off things.

Didn't Jesus take time to rest? You betcha! If he needed spiritual rest, it's a good bet that we do too. Learn how, not as a matter of keeping a law but as a way of fulfilling a need, that the Sabbath was made for us, and not us for it.