Sabbath Rest

Posted on September 21, 2015 by America's Keswick in Freedom Fighters

Sabbath Rest

In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul. Psalm 94:19

Sabbath Rest

At 61 I should have learned this lesson by now. I’ve told you before that I am a very slow learner.

I don’t do rest well. Part of my upbringing was that we always had to be doing something. If we weren’t always doing something, we were lazy.

Life was always a flurry of activity in our house. We were very connected to the church. If the doors were open, we were expected to be there. We never heard about Sabbath rest. Sabbath was just another day to pack in more activity: Church, Sunday School, meetings in the park, youth group, Sunday evening church, and then there was some activity after church. Rest? Not in your life.

But I am learning the hard way that there comes a point of no return when it all this flurry and hurry catches up with you. This is not life the way God intended it to be. Work is very much part of life. God addresses work in the Bible. But He also speaks about rest and the need for it.

Somehow in our own deceived ways, we have bought into the lie that we don’t need to rest. We pack as much into our lives as we can and wonder why we have no energy, why life seems to be flying by, and for some, it is like a merry-go-round that we can’t get off.

Dr. Mark Swenson says that we have failed to build rest and margin into our lives, and sooner or later, it will catch up.

Some of us actually have bought into the lie that we always need to be available. I’ve been there. But Stephen Smith says that “being so available sets us up to live our lives in the illusion that we are more important than we actually are. We think I might be needed. I need to be available I may know something that someone else wants.”

He goes on to say that “Sabbath is humanity’s reminder, every seven days, that through resting, ceasing, and unyoking ourselves from the world and work, we gain something that we cannot have by working harder … We cannot sustain the pace by living in a rhythm that is other that what God has modeled and demonstrated for us … Sabbath is our weekly opportunity to reassess the speed and the trajectory of our lives and make adjustments to stay on course.”

If the God of the universe after spending six days creating the world as we know it, and on the seventh day rested, what makes me think that I can work seven days and not rest?

I am not here to tell you how to do this. Is Sabbath rest for you on Sunday, or is it another day? We don’t have the space to debate all that. BUT I do know this – God wants us to rest and enjoy the recreating our bodies and minds. It’s something to think about.

How do you spend your Sabbath? What have you learned about Sabbath rest that could be a benefit to the rest of us? – Bill Welte is President/CEO of America’s Keswick

Daily Bible Reading: Ezekiel 3-4; John 9:1-23

Think About This: Consistent availability to people and the world is one of the greatest threats to our soul. Steven W. Smith

This Week’s Verse to Memorize: In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul. Psalm 94:19

Want to get away & have dedicated time to read & learn God’s Word?

Consider a retreat at America’s Keswick retreat center.

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