Day 88: A Sabbath Manifesto

This week a friend of mine directed me to a website about something called the Sabbath Manifesto - a National Day of Unplugging, it was called.  Whilst I'm not Jewish, and don't celebrate the Sabbath on a sunset-to-sunset basis, I feel very strongly about our need for rest and about God's command to us as Christians that we must rest.  My resting is done on the Sunday, the Lord's Day, but I've noticed lately that I do have a habit of letting technology and other things sneak into my day of rest and make it less restful.

The Sabbath Manifesto lists 10 excellent principles.  My only addition would be, not number 11, but number 1, which is to ensure meditation on God and on His Word. Finding silence (number 9) is excellent, because therein we do often find God, but sometimes we just find our own thoughts.  So, I will add that to mine. 

At any rate, I'm going to attempt it on this Lord's Day.  Starting tonight (I'm rushing this blog post to be done by the time it's dark), I'm turning off the computer and even turning off my mobile phone!!  I have no idea how I will manage, but I'm greatly looking forward to it. Pin and I are going to make a meal, light candles, eat bread (tiger bread!), drink wine, avoid technology, and most of all, my favourite of the ten items, find silence.

May you have a beautiful day of rest tomorrow.

Day 72: Confidence in Rest

Another Lord's Day, and another opportunity to get a real and proper rest.  To church in the morning, and then a good long rest including a several-hour-long nap, then back to church in the evening. 

One of the things I've come to really enjoy in the church I am in is singing from the Scottish metrical Psalter.  Sometimes it puts things in a new way, that make me see the familiar Bible verses just a little bit differently.

"O Thou that art the Lord of hosts,
That man is truly blest
Who by assured confidence
on Thee alone doth rest."   -Psalm 84.12

Enjoy your rest today.

Walk length: None! Guilt free!

Day 24: Boxing Day...of Rest

Today is Boxing Day.  Normally, when it doesn't fall on a Sunday, we (me and Megs) lie around in our jammies and watch films all day long.  The goal is to recuperate from the incredibly difficult work of eating a huge Christmas meal and opening so many gifts the day before.  But today being the Lord's Day, I got to go worship with the saints at God's house, and afterwards go to the minister's family for lunch and then build a gingerbread house! 

I do really enjoy a day of being refreshed in soul, and not having responsibilities to work or even walk.  I did a miniature amount of walking (from the church to the manse and back, I think, is about it), but right now it's a time to sit back and rest and meditate on the sermon, which was absolutely excellent.  The story was of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, and I have always felt that some of the most amazing (and difficult, for us) verses in the Bible are in John 11.5-6:  "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  So, when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was."  Jesus' ways are so inscrutable at times.  But His goal is not to make us happy or please us or make all our trouble go away, right away.  His goal is the glory of God revealed in us.  And often that means that instead of nice, tidy, simple, incremental steps of growth, He uses something so powerful and so difficult and so heart-wrenching that we must grow swiftly, suddenly, shatteringly. 

And the result is more amazing that we can imagine.

Enjoy your rest and meditation on God today.