Daily Bread #15
A Thought To Ponder:
One of my preacher-heroes is Lynn Anderson. I came across this great article he wrote nearly 20 years ago. Lynn’s wisdom and insight have blessed generations of Christians. I hope his teaching on Sabbath blesses you.
“Sabbath doesn’t have to be on Saturday. Nor taken as a whole day. Sometimes it lasts only a moment. Today my Sabbath lasted 250 miles as Abraham and I rolled through the Texas Hill Country. We covered this same terrain last Thanksgiving. Things were gray then. That time we traveled under a bland gray sky, across drought-drained dreary gray. Miles of dull, gray pavement, stretching across vast gray pasture. Through bleak gray hills past dormant gray Scrub Oak sticks and naked gray Mesquite arms. Gray.
But no gray today! Green instead. Today is April in Texas, following a record wet winter. This trip, lush springtime smiles from every hilltop and at every river crossing. Fresh grass carpets rolling green hills from summit to valley, as far as eye can see. Soft, pale green spreads across Mesquite bows, here and there dotted by dark green Scrub Oak. Green. And so much more. For green merely backdrops the brilliant extravaganza of wild flower colors: Startling crimson Indian Paint brush. Radiant gold-fringed Black Eyed Susan, tiny blossoms of purple, pink, and white — amidst oceans of deep, rich, Bluebonnet blue. Blue, splattering the roadsides and the pasturelands, spilling across meadows and up hillsides under regal Spanish Oaks. Overhead beams a radiant sun, and a lone fleecy cloud floats, across an endless blue sky.
So a Sabbath came to Abraham and me today. (Abraham is my ‘earth wandering’ old Toyota 4Runner, so named by our Grandchildren.) Sweet Sabbath. A quiet and beautiful space for…
…remembering God!
…pondering the rush of His creative energy in the living things all around.
…marveling at His wise designs and His loving presence.
Sabbath space to feel His voice caress my soul, reminding me that His grace always stands waiting to cover my dead gray, with lush explosions of floral color.
He hands out a fresh new beginning.
“The Almighty has not gone away,” I mused, “nor quit loving, nor lost His power during ‘the gray of soul’s winter.’ He has been waiting. Waiting for my Sabbath. Now he flags me down with this springtime splendor, till I am still enough to hear Him whisper like silent thunder. He hands out a fresh new beginning. He declares that life and labor are not in vain. He really does spread the lush green of His grace and bright flower of hope over the gray of my ordinariness, my failures, and my sins. He reminds me that in His eyes, I am valuable and useful — and I am loved.
Sabbath! Yes. For Sabbath, says Wayne Muller, in Sabbath: Remembering the Sacred Rhythm of Rest and Delight, “…is a day we walk in the forest, walk among the fruits of our harvest and the ruins of our desperations, and see what lives. On the Sabbath, we rest. And see that it is good.”
“And God said, ‘it is good.’” (Genesis 1)
Questions To Discuss:
1. What refreshes you? What activities do you engage in to “recharge” your batteries?
2. If you could go anywhere in the world, to take a Sabbath rest where would you go?
3. When you read the 4thcommandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, how do imagine we can keep a day holy? What does that mean to you?
4. What are some less ordinary ways that you engage in worship? We all can sing, pray, and read scripture, but what are some other ways we can express ourselves to God?
5. When you read that we should shout and make a joyful noise in worship, how do you perceive that action taking place? Would you feel comfortable doing that in the setting of a church building?
6. What are one or two things that you could stop doing right now in order to give more time and attention to the Lord?
A Scripture To Read:
Hebrews 4:1-11
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,
“So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.” 5 And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”
6 Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, 7 God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.
A Prayer For Change
Dear Lord, help me to make
every Sabbath about you.
Quiet my heart,
give rest to my soul,
and refocus my spirit—
for true renewal comes only from you.
Holy Spirit please help me to be intentional
with my time and worship,
and encourage me to find rest in you alone.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
-Rick Warren