Missional Sabbath…

October 2, 2008

Sabbath can be ‘missional’ because

1. It’s completely counter-cultural and is a way of creating a kingdom culture in the west

2. It reminds us of the mission God is one, even when we’re not.

Some random thoughts on rest

I am no practitioner of rest. I’ve always loved the bon jovi song that goes “I’ll live when I’m alive, sleep when I’m dead” (yes, I like bon jovi). I use to read books on lucid dreaming, so that I could continue getting stuff done while I was unconscious.

My wife once told me that maybe my lack of sleep was due to my lack of trust in God

How is it that we worship the prince of peace and yet most of us are filled with worry, anxiety, and conflict in our souls?

When we’re busy helping other people with their junk, we don’t have to worry about our own

Jesus didn’t busy himself healing everyone, yet he still saved the world.

Jesus famously declares in Matthew 11:28-30 for us to come to him and he will give us rest. But he doesn’t explicitly say that he’ll take any of the load off of us…

St. Augustine said that our hearts won’t ever find rest, until we find our rest in god. I think he might have got it from Psalm 62:1

Many of us find ourselves busier than we ought to be because we’re doing things Christ never called us to.

Sometimes we can find rest by learning to receive and allowing others to help

Sometimes the help God’s trying to provide us isn’t exactly what we’re looking for (like sabbath), but we still need to learn to receive

Everyone talks about rest these days from psychologists to corporate wellness programs, but just about all of them are from a utilitarian approach. Get some rest so that you can…

Sabbath has nothing to do with productivity.

Sabbath reminds me that I’m not a machine nor an invincible superhero.

Sabbath is a command because I wouldn’t do it if it was just a suggestion (Exodus 20:8)

One way of looking at the creation story of God resting, is that it obviously wasn’t because he was tired, but because he was so satisfied with his work that he could step back from it. How might the end of each of your days be like this?

Genesis also describes the rhythms as “then there was evening and then morning”. The Israelites practiced Sabbath from friday dusk to saturday. In an age without electrical lighting, sabbath began when they went to sleep.

In this sense, Sabbath is when we get out of the way so that God can work. When we wake, we wake up into a world that we did not create and we join God in what he is already doing.

Our practice of sabbath (whatever expression it might take on) radically speaks of our view of God.

Sabbath challenges us to actually trust that even though we’re not working, God actually is in our world. And he might actually even be capable of the miraculous.

In Sabbath we stop what we’re doing so we can finally observe and enjoy what God has already done

How do you find rest for your soul?