God's Time Management -- Sabbath

And on the seventh day, God threw a monkey wrench in the whole business and took a day off. Most of the time, we consider ourselves and our ongoing activity more crucial than the creator of the universe. If we stop moving, life as we know it will explode into mess of thermonuclear proportions.

Back in the days that I taught senior high school students in Sunday School, they calmly discussed everything from sex to the nature of the trinity without ever breaking a sweat. But upon the casual mention of the sabbath, they grew red faced and threw up exasperated hands. "Who has time to take a day off? Do you have any idea what our lives are like?"

Oddly enough, this part of the creation story made it into the famous TEN COMMANDMENTS. Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy. Right there in the midst of not murdering and not sleeping with other people's spouses and not worshipping other gods.

Pastors break this commandment regularly. Work on Sunday leading worship. Then work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And then it is Sunday again.

Who has time for a day off?

Today, after a mad rush all week at work, and after a delightfully insanely company filled Easter weekend last week...today I attempted a day of rest. I drove myself a little nuts looking for the right book to read, the right project to start, the right subject to study, the right way to rest. It is only now, as darkness falls, that I'm beginning to realize that somewhere in the midst of my rest day anxiety, I actually began to let my soul catch up with my body.

There is a combination of ingredients...rest and worship...that must be mixed together to keep the commandment in full. Rest without worship tends to head us into the shallow waters of self absorption and silly pursuits. Worship without rest tends to make us cranky and unbearable, incapable of loving deeply.

With the high school students, so sure that sabbath was an impossible ideal, I encouraged them to take tiny sabbaths in the midst of their rush. If not a day, then a few hours. If not a few hours, then a few minutes. Starting small...just to pause in the midst of the chaotic rush to breath, to think, to gell.

This week, I'd consistently gotten myself whipped into a frenzy trying to get to everything that needed doing. Several times I found myself forced to stop...once or twice in traffic...once waiting for another person. I found the small pellet of common sense that rattles in the centrifuge of my mania...and relaxed in the peace of the moment. When the pace picked back up, I was a little more ready to run, less anxious, more focused. More centered on the who and why of my existence.

Remember the sabbath. Keep it. Let it keep you.