The focus of the message today was all about our need to regularly make space for sabbath - space to breathe, to create margin in life so that we might have time to discover more fully who we are and Who God is. Sabbath rest is about more than just taking time off from work or going to church on Sundays, although both of those things are important - especially the latter! :) It is about learning to rest in God, to trust in God, to abide in God. In John 15:4-5, Jesus says, “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” As we mentioned this morning, the implication of these verses is that Jesus is already living in us, abiding in us. Even though there may be times when we are unaware of that presence, the presence of God in Christ is always with us, always in us. And Sabbath rest is one of the ways we more fully integrate that presence of God into our daily lives, in part by learning to stop doing so much and to simply BE.
One of the books I utilized in today’s message was The Subversive Sabbath, by A.J. Swoboda, who writes: “Sabbath is not new. Sabbath is just new to us… It is not as though we do not love God — we love God deeply. We just do not know how to sit with God anymore… As a result of our Sabbath amnesia, we have become perhaps the most emotionally exhausted, psychologically overworked, spiritually malnourished people in history… Bowing at the sacred altars of hyperactivity, progress, and technological compulsivity, our souls increasingly pant for meaning and value and truth as they wither away, exhausted, frazzled, displeased, ever on edge… Our bodies wear ragged. Our spirits thirst. We have an inability to simply sit still and be.”
This is the purpose for this entire series: for all of us to incorporate ways to simply sit still and be. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know I am God.” It is a powerful reminder that God is God… and I am not. When I stop trying to play God, and simply trust in God to be God… then, finally, I can find rest.
Let that be our prayer today: Lord, let me be still… and know You are God.