Category Archives: sabbath

Time off

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I took a few days off from 300wordsaday awhile back. I called it a sabbatical. It was actually a break for you and for me. I was traveling during many of those days to a variety of events, and I ran out of words.

I didn’t come back to writing all rested. But that wasn’t the point. Rest wasn’t on the list. I did come back with the realization that 300wordsaday is, for me, like manna. A daily provision.

If you need a review, manna was what showed up on the ground six days a week during most of the forty years the people of Israel wandered the desert. From the outset, God said it would be a day’s worth five days a week and two day’s worth on the sixth. And then, on the seventh day? Nothing.

When a few people tried to get extra on any day but the sixth, it rotted. When a few people tried to get some one the seventh, nothing.

God said, “I’ll feed you all you need, but you need to depend on me. And my schedule. And my commitment to just in time manufacturing.”

What I realized while I was not writing is that I can’t write ahead here. It never works. I can’t store up posts and plan a strategy and teach through something. Anything.  When I try, it feels off, contrived. And that’s not a bad thing.

In fact, it’s a great thing, an opportunity to daily depend on God for food.

Funny. When Jesus said to pray for daily bread in the prayer we know as the Lord’s prayer, he wasn’t just making it up. It wasn’t random.

It was the story of the forty years in the wilderness. Daily bread. Just enough. Nothing extra.

So, what’s your manna?

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Here’s a video version of this post: Time off

And here’s a sermon on Matthew 5:21-26 I preached yesterday: A different kind of memorial day

too many words about

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You know what I’d love to give you? Some silence. I’d love to give you some time to stop and think and be still.

I’d love to give me that, too.

You are probably better than I am at stopping. Me? When I sit down to be still, it allows me to remember the things that aren’t done. It allows me to think about what I could be doing with this time. It allows me to fill the time with chatter. Or with clutter. Or with activity.

I wonder if part of the problem with the way I try to be still. I try to concentrate. I try to be quiet. I try to stop, so that maybe I can hear God and hear myself.

Here’s what’s interesting, however. When I decide to spend time with Nancy, I don’t talk about the need to be still.  I don’t berate myself for my incapacity for not being with her. I don’t spend time not with her thinking I should be with her.

I go find her.

If I am having a hard time concentrating, I tell her. (And when I do, it usually comes as no surprise to her.) And I may ask her to help me remember something. And I may say, “can we walk and talk?” And I may say, “I’ll be back in 5 minutes.”

So here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that maybe I should stop worrying so much about emptying my head and start working more on listening to and for Jesus. In the words of other people. In the words written for us by John and Matthew and others.

Maybe if I thought more about conversation with Him and less about being silent first, just like Nancy does, He would help with both.

Happy weekend, friends.

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Related post: A question of stopping

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Back from vacation

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What, exactly, are you supposed to do on vacation? I mean, how do you know if it was successful? What’s the measure of a good vacation?

What does Jesus say about vacation?

As far as I know, nothing.

However, in his life he would have lived with a balance that doesn’t show up in mine. He would have taken one day in seven to rest, though not legalistically. He would have stopped working at dusk. He would have kept a schedule of feasting that had both solemnity and celebration. He thought nothing of going away from the crowd to think and pray, even when it got in the way of enhancing his reputation. He apparently relaxed enough with his disciples that we read about them arguing with him, something that friends do. He lived a lot of conversations and actions and meals and naps that weren’t considered important enough to be recorded for everyone to read about later, that were intended to be enjoyed in the moment.

I, on the other hand, stretch the edges. I try to multipurpose expereince, capturing the memories with pictures and blog posts and sermon illustrations. I arrive at vacation time and scramble to get work done ahead of time and to catch up on the work afterwards. I feel a need to cram as many experiences into the time not working as possible, so as to redeem the resting time.

And I am not alone, am I?

I spent the last week with my family and my parents. It was a good time. I tried not to think too much about writing, about reading, about working through a pile of necessary expereinces. And I’m trying to understand what a life lived balanced might look like.

I mean, apart from looking a lot like Jesus.

listening in the evening.

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I write this on a comfortable evening, sitting on the deck. The wind is blowing the trees. The birds are chipping in their evening voices. I can’t tell whether they are trying to get the kids to settle down or making plans for tomorrow. The robin is on the wire, resting a moment before heading to the ground to find another mouthful for the almost grown children.

I can almost, tonight, picture Jesus calling the crowd to him and starting to tell a story.

He’d start to talk about birds being watched by their heavenly Father. Or He’d look up at the birds carrying food to their children and talk about how they don’t have to plant or plow. Or he’d notice how everything got very quiet just as the hawk flew through the yard. Maybe he’d say something about being vigilant.

The people would follow his gaze up to the birds, or across to the tree where the hawk had gone. As they looked, his words began to work on them.

The stories are succinct. They allow for, they demand, they invite, reflection. You can understand that for some people, they were nice stories about birds or merchants or planters. For some people, they were confusing metaphors. For some people, the ones who stopped and listened and decided that maybe his words were worth considering, the stories of Jesus were life-challenging, life-changing.

Looking at birds tonight, to live as if I were a bird, actually depending on God to put food where I can find it if I look, seems hard. I have to accept that it is not my looking that provides it. It’s not my searching that makes it grow. I have to seek. And I will find.

Like starting to write a story. And finding birds.

Weakened

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Or should it say weekend?

Some of us get to Saturday morning, full of energy, full of projects, full of passion to “get something done.” The rest of us get to Saturday morning dragging. We have been busy all week. We are struggling with a list of activities that got longer during the week, rather than shorter. Saturday morning has a list of projects, yes, but it also comes with a list of obligations that is even longer. We drag the tasks from the wee, hoping to get some done before Monday.

Unless we work on the weekend anyway. In which case Saturday is already a work day and full of activities and the longing for time off to match the schedules of our friends.

And we arrive at the weekend exhausted, carrying a backpack full of obligations and eyes full of dreams and a heart that is weary. And God’s response is not to give us the strength to keep pushing through. God’s response is to tell us to forget about that workd for a day a week.

What a burden that is. To have to talk off perfectly good working time in order to obey God? To lose track of all those projects while taking a day to play? To not be productive, on purpose, for one seventh of my waking time?

What kind of system is that!

Wait. What kind of system is leaving everyone I know tired. What kind of system is exhausting people, is putting rings around eyes. What kind of system has me yawning as I write?

Oh. That’s right. A system built about me rather that being built for me.

Jesus invited us to come to him for rest. And so, being the weekend, I invite you to listen to him. With me.