THE SABBATH - The day of rest
Hello friends!
I greet you all! Happy August! If you're new here; welcome! I'm glad you stopped by! As you can tell from the title, I observed the sabbath day.
No, I'm not a seventh day Adventist nor do I associate myself with any sabbatarian denomination. I'm a woman who was led by the Spirit of the most High to start observing it. Actually no one in my family observes it. Remember Romans 14:5-6 yeah! I don't impose. In this post I share with you how it all started for me.
I started taking a sabbath rest in April 2021. Like most working moms, I was constantly tired, overwhelmed, overstimulated and exhausted. I was juggling working full-time; parenting my then toddler; and homemaking. I was working 6 days; Monday to Saturday; with Sundays off so I could go to church.
But when Sunday came around, I was so spent that I could hardly do anything let alone go anywhere.
On Sundays, I made sure to wake up before my then my son woke up so I'd have some quiet time to myself. I'd wake up 6:30am and go out at the balcony with my coffee and Bible to catch the morning breeze. Bytheway; I recommend the morning breeze, it's pretty awesome!
It was on one of those mornings, when I didn't have the energy to crawl out of bed when out of the blue I heard "someone" say sabbath! It was so loud and clear that immediately I was wide awake; looking around; like what was that?! I jumped out of bed, uttering the same word; sabbath as I headed to the kitchen!
I drank my water; made my coffee and headed straight to the balcony. For my Bible study that morning; I went straight to the Ten commandments:
⁸ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger within your gates. ¹¹For in six days the Lord made the heavens and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.
Reading these verses was like having one of those aha moments; as though I was reading something new! It was like I was hearing God Himself talk to me face-to-face! I knew right there and then that I was going to adopt this in my weekly routine.
For me, Saturday was the most obvious since it is practically the seventh day. The following morning I submitted my two weeks change of schedule notice indicating my intention to take both Saturdays and Sundays off.
Over the next days, I searched the Bible for more scriptures about the sabbath. The more I studied, the more I was drawn to start taking a sabbath rest. Two weeks later, I started observing the sabbath. I didn't know what I was doing. For the first months, I still did some chores around the house and went thrifting (old habits are really hard to break!). But I continued to read about the sabbath and also prayed for God's guidance as I chose to obey His Word.
Five years down, the sabbath has surely been a blessing to me. Each week I look forward to it as a child waits for santa. I've arranged my weekly schedule and routines to make sure I get everything done in six days. If I don't get to it before sundown, it waits!
Although I'm not legalistic about it; I try to make it a special time for our family. On Friday at sundown, we light the candles, read some scriptures pertaining to the sabbath; say a prayer; break bread; sing praises and then feast! Dinner is usually one of my "house specials"; I pull out the "nicer" tablecloth, and bring out the fine china; and sometimes I have fresh flowers for a centerpiece! The mood in the home is usually joyous and anticipatory.
What is Sabbath?
The Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day commanded by Yahweh to be kept as a holy day of rest. It is observed by Jews and many Christians from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Some Christians observe it on Sunday.
Most of us know it as the fourth commandment. In Exodus 31:16 we see that “The people of Israel are to keep the Sabbath, to observe it throughout all their generations, as a perpetual covenant.”
Many people today generalize the sabbath commandment as just one of the old testament laws which were "done away with". However, I I've come to believe otherwise. I think it still applies to us today just as the other nine commandments. Why?
- The scriptures indicate that long before the Law was instituted, God had a rhythm which He set in place when He created the heavens and earth in six days and rested on the seventh day as reflected in Genesis 2:1-3.
- In Mark 2:17 we see that "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath". This means that the Sabbath day, a day of rest, is intended to benefit humanity, not the other way around. No one can argue against the benefits of rest!
The purpose of the sabbath
The sabbath is for the purpose of stopping and remembering that God is the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of life. So we want to spend the day in ways that help us do that. If we spend a day not doing things that involve achieving, acquiring or controlling; we increase the likelihood that we will focus on what Christ has achieved as in resting in his finished work. We are also kept in awareness that God has sovereign control over the universe.
Taking a sabbath rest is also an act of trust. It’s you telling God, "I can’t do anything on my own" and therefore you choose cease from working and cease from striving to demonstrate that your strength and success comes from the Lord and not from your hard work.
Something else to consider is how fast and instant the pace of life today is! Often our brains are rushing to the next thing without even appreciating the now. We are constantly ready to jump on to the next thing! We don’t have time to think through one thing and yet we're bombarded with another. Our souls, minds, and bodies are literally crying out for some peace and quiet; and more certainly, rest.
The sabbath rest brings in that element of shutting off the world around us so we can truly rest and most importantly have it quiet enough to be able to hear from God.
We may feel like we need that day to catch up on stuff. But God is giving us all an opportunity to trust him by not doing anything; trusting that He will provide even as we stop striving. It’s a time to remember that God is our provider.
You maybe tired; exhausted; can't think straight; wanting a day you can sleep in; wake-up to enjoy family or simply do nothing; the sabbath is that day! It is a gift from God; take it for your physical body as you continue to rest daily in the finished work of Christ our true rest. Believe me; you'll be blessed.
Peace be with you friends
Rita.
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