Thursday, April 19, 2018
The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.
He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams.
He renews my strength. Psalm 23:1-3(NLT)
He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams.
He renews my strength. Psalm 23:1-3(NLT)
Green meadows with
peaceful streams are quiet places. Every
human needs times of quiet to be restored – to have strength return to the body
and mind. For the Christian follower of
Jesus those times are for prayer, casting all our cares upon the Lord.[2] And, in order to do that there must be times
of repose, purposeful rest!
For me the ability
to gain restoring to my soul requires exchanging my exhaustion for God’s
renewal. This is an issue of sabbath, a
principle God established early on for His people to prevent wearing out
prematurely.
“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary
work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your
God. On that day no one in your
household may do any work. This includes
you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock,
and any foreigners living among you. For
in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and
everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the
Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.
Exodus 20:8-11(NLT)
I have known
people who seemed to think the concept of sabbath was so antiquated it
didn’t apply to them. The idea of taking
a day off seemed wasteful; there was a world to be conquered out there, and
taking time off from the conquest was lazy and irresponsible. God may have rested on the seventh day, but the
world would fall apart if they did…with all due respect, it doesn’t; your world
comes unglued when you fail to rest.
Even one of the
most famous myth creators knew this well.
The story goes that Aesop was playing a children’s game with some very
young kids when a colleague walked by.
The man remarked that Aesop was wasting time with those children,
playing a worthless game when he should have been working. Aesop got up, picked-up his bow and laid it
in the middle of the road and then challenged the man to tell him the meaning
of what he just did. The man wracked his
brain for a long time, but couldn’t come up with an answer. Having won this battle of wits, Aesop then
explained, 'If you keep your bow tightly strung at all times, it will quickly
break, but if you let it rest, it will be ready to use whenever you need
it.' In the same way the mind must be given some amusement from time to
time, so that you will find yourself able to think more clearly afterwards.[3]
For You Today
If you ignore
sabbath you run the risk of being ineffective as a disciple at least. But the more weighty transgression is to know
that you have marginalized something God said was important. If it’s been awhile, rest your bow today!
Go to VIDEO
[3] Aesop's Fables. A
new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
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