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Resting

             It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. (Deuteronomy 13:4)

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)

 

          I’m writing this on Sunday morning after just confessing on my Facebook page that I don’t know if I’m strong enough to make today a day of rest. Things need to be put away, seeds need to be planted, problems need to be solved, writing, reading, and crafting need to be done. Each of these screams for attention. And I realize that a lot of people would shrug their shoulders. All those things can wait until tomorrow.

          They’re right, of course. But I suspect they have their own list, which might involve “needing” to watch football or binge-watch something on TV or streamed on their computers. They might need to have a family dinner or even to sleep. The important thing isn’t the exact thing that feel the need to do but that they need to do it. It can be a good thing, like “I need to go to church.” The question is – what are the things that you “need” to do or to have on Sunday other than spend time with God? What would spending the whole day with God look like?

          Is your immediate reaction, “Ugh, how boring!”? Or, “Oh good! An excuse to kick back, indulge myself, maybe even take a nap, and not work!”? But don’t those answers focus on your preferences for the day? Even assuming that you somehow strictly follow the Law about the Sabbath and get it all right, doesn’t the focus of the day end up being your excellence in keeping the Law?

          How would you feel about God suggesting that next Sunday, you spend the day with Him puttering in the garden or cooking a meal? What if, next Sunday, God calls on you to spend the day in prayer, helping someone move, or make your Sunday not the way you think your Sunday is supposed to be? What if the whole point is not about what you do or don’t do but whether God is at the center of your focus?

          My response is that I’m not strong enough to stand against all the things that scream for my attention. I recognize that yesterday was a particularly challenging day because I’m trying to get settled in. But all these things seem to think they have a right to demand my attention – a right that I have given them, and the fact that I feel too weak to stand against them means that I need to discuss them with God. I long to be able to quote the verse from Joshua above, but I need to work on the verse from Deuteronomy.

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