Sabbath?

Notes from the Pastor…

A Rabbi said, “Time is man’s greatest challenge.”  
When I think about time I contemplate how we can take time, count time, have time fly, move through time zones, but we can never control time.  Indeed, it is our dependence on time that guides our incessant need for control.  We live impatiently because we do not wish to waste time.  We are apprehensive of new things because we want to learn only at our digression and timing.  We act with annoyance at those that do things at their own pace because it interrupts our scheduled time.  

Consequently, if “Time is man’s greatest challenge”, then it is because time is outside human control. 

Given this reality; I urge you to form a discipline of Sabbath, because Sabbath derives from a theology of time.  By Sabbath I do not mean Sunday morning church; rather, an intentional time of rest and prayer.  Someone, somewhere once defined Sabbath as: “A period of inactivity that persuades our spirits that God is always active.”  To put it another way, in Sabbath we rest; realizing that God is still at work. In Sabbath we form patience, not only in the practice of stillness, but in the awareness that time cannot be wasted; only used.  God uses time to bring about his purpose, and we must be patient that God’s purpose is threaded through all circumstances.

In Sabbath we develop flexibility.  Life is a journey in the unexpected; to think of it as anything less is self-deception.  Through the practice of rest and prayer we find that the Spirit of God 
moves even in the unexpected and new things become exciting adventures with Jesus.  In Sabbath we are infused with empathy.  When we pause, we come to acknowledge that we 
can do nothing to change the people around us.  All we can do is pray and trust that God is active in developing people to his purposes and not our own.

No matter our vocation or season of life, each of us should cultivate the discipline of the fourth Commandment:

Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.

Grace,
Pastor Ryan