Sorry I'm posting so late today, but welcome!
I want to invite a lot of your thoughts and experiences today on a topic that I've been grappling with for a while. What does is look like to keep the Sabbath?
In several years of studying the Old Testament, I've decided that God talked too much about the Sabbath for it just to be an Old Testament concept. Jesus talked about the Sabbath, too.
When I was a little girl, the Blue Laws helped our culture still observe the Sabbath to some degree. There was very little shopping to be done, and most restaurants were closed. Families went to church and/or rested at home.
Things sure have changed! All the stores and restaurants are open. The laundry mounds call. For me, lesson plans have to be done. Our culture has effectively made Sunday just another day.
But God never changes.
It's important to me to be obedient to God in all areas of my life, so I've been trying to search and pray about what the Sabbath is to look like for our family.
Here's an amazing scripture that my brother pointed out to me:
"If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." (Isaiah 58:13-14)
That's quite a promise! I'd love to hear about how you and your family honor the Sabbath and make it a day of rest.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Calling the Sabbath a Delight
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13 comments:
I am so glad to see that God had help you find the thruth about the Sabbath, IT IS A DELIGHT! and just as you say, It is the day that GOD himself blessed and made it Holy for us to rest. However, Jesus himself rested in his Tomb on Sabbath and resurected on Sunday. Not to make the first of the week a special day to keep, but to show us the importance of the Sabbath. I dont know if you realized that it was the Pope who changed the Sabbath to Sunday as the day of whorship. I hope you continue studying this thruth. Also, the Seventh day of the week in our calendar has not changed since the beginning of this world. Our Saturday is the Sabbath of the LORD. Allowed God to bless us specially when we follow his orders.
Amy,
Oh, how you have inspired me today to spend a school day with the Lord. Never have I thought of taking a day away while the kids are at school to be with God. When I spend time with him during the day, it is to write, to prepare, to blog but never do I sit before Him with no agenda.
Thank you, Amy. I am praying for the Lord to direct me to a day for this special time with Him.
Love you,
Wendy
First I have to say I came to your blog from the Proverbs 31 devotion today and loved it. It is what I am struggling with "having the time to spend talking, studying, worshiping our Lord"! Loved the post and gave me several ideas on how I can improve. Comments from the blog today......I hate to say as a working Mother and Grandmother, Saturday's are usually spent at sports activities with Grands, and after church on Sunday's we usually get caught up on housework and yard work. I know this is terrible and after speaking with my husband, we are going to make a concentrated effort to improve! Pray for us in this area of our lives.
I have often wondered how to keep the Sabbath Holy in these days and times...with a husband who does not go to church it is difficult to keep that "Spiritual/Holy" feeling in our household...I believe that the Sabbath is just as important today as it was so long ago...and I have been trying to make sunday my day of rest..to an extent that it works for us...thanks for sharing this message with us! I too, love the idea of a school day with my Father..God bless and Happy Blogging!
For us, my husband is a pastor and I am a women's ministry director, so Sunday is rarely a true Sabbath. I have learned that I still need sabbath time with the Lord to remember who God is and who I am in Him. I try to schedule a sabbath day once a month. Right now I have one of our kids at home for school, so that can be challenging. I've taught him that "we" need to plan for a sabbath. We try to carve out morning through afternoon high school pick up time for my other child, and that is precious time for a busy mom schedule. It takes commitment to keep the sabbath "clear," and I'm not always victorious, but I am always thankful. I need to plan my next one ... thanks for the reminder! :)
Hi Amy,
I, too, read your post on Proverbs 31 today! How inspiring! You painted a great picture of how we miss/pass up the blessing of a private extended spritual retreat with God. Your post also caused me to think about the goodness God wants to bless me with, but I overlook, pass by, ignore or even waste time trying to figure out whether or not I'm deserving when He's calling out to me, "Come eat!". Thanks for the post!
As far as honoring the Sabbath, my family maximizes Saturdays (ball games, family outings, all the house work,etc. Then Sundays are set aside for worship, family dinner and rest. Our businesses are closed and there's no place anybody HAS to be. Every now and then clothes didn't get washed, but we've come a LONG way.
I've struggled with making the Sabbath a day of rest for years. But, I think we have finally fallen into a pattern of Sunday just being about church/family/ and relaxing. Lunch is eaten out or in the crock pot. And dinner is pizza night and a movie. Winters are spent reading books/playing by the fire and summer is playing outside together as a family...no work for anyone just fun, often we end up napping. It had to be a concentrated effort. I can't say that we do it perfectly, but we try to give it our best shot.
Ohhhh Amy I LOVED your devo today! Our pastor takes one day EVERY month..a 24 hour day away in the mountains to be with the Lord and I've always wanted to do that every month..yeah right! But I did TWICE take a 24 hour respite with the Lord and it was life-changing...you've reminded me to do that again..even if it's just a school day. Wow...I love you! Shari
Your P31 Devo touched on just what my girlfriend and I were talking about today, making sure we have time with God to keep ourselves on track and to keep our relationship with Him open.
My Sabbath consists of a busy morning singing at one or (usually) both services at our church. I arrive early for rehearsal and stay late to chat with some friends and minister to others. By the time I get home, I'm ready for a snack and and some quiet time. I nestle into bed with my Bible and usually get to take a lovely nap! (my kids are older!) This is a special day of peace and relaxation for me. I find such a closeness with God as I sing for Him, and then I come home and rest in Him. What a blessing!
This too is something that I have been working on. I feel like I am the type of person that is busy for busyness sake and I have really worked hard over the last 6-8 months to stop this bad habit.
We maximize our Saturdays by spending half of the day as a family whether that involves going to the zoo or Sea World or swim class, etc and the other half is spent doing house/yard work.
Since the New Year, I have really wanted our family to honor the Sabbath (my husband is still a little leary of what that entails). We go to church and eat a simple lunch (usually take out) and just do nothing together. We might go walk at the local park or sit in the backyard and let the kids play, but there are no errands or work to be done. Dinner is simple--grill and salad. It helps me to get recharged for the work week and I think that it is good quality time with family and God. For someone who is naturally a busy body, it really helps to center me.
Have you read Breathe by Kerri Wyatt Kent? She writes about Sabbath Keeping and it has changed the way I look at it. This is a spiritual discipline I try to put into practice every week. But I typically practice this on Sunday after church by spending time with the family and reflecting and conversing about the wonder and goodness of God. We usually have a simple lunch and dinner with minimal work (leftovers and upside down dinner a.k.a. pancakes) and then spend time playing outside or inside, going for walks, reading, just being together. No phone calls, computer, house work is just maintaince - picking up clothes and toys, kitchen clean up, cat litter- very minimal. It is all about taking time to intentionally spend family time together and seize these moments to teach, laugh, enjoy one another and some time for mom, in particular, to be alone (while the kids nap) to read and reflect on Gods's Word. Sabbath Keeping looks differently for each family and evolves as the family grows up- but it is an essential discipline for me to practice weekly.
i stumbled onto this blog on accident googling for sabbath passages and being a sabbatarian it is always nice to see posts about it. as i was typing a comment i noticed that someone already posted almost to the t what i was going to say. here's a link which gives bible text only, about the sabbath and the maenings of sabbath in the original languages, along with all of the passages about the first day of the week--- hope you find this helpful: http://www.sabbath-day.com/TextList.html
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
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