Sunday, March 4, 2012

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Living What You Believe

During this Lenten season I invite you again to set apart one day a week to stop your work and make time for rest and worship.  Live what you believe by trusting God and his ability to care for you and the world without your help.

Your immediate response may be, I don’t have time. Jesus lived an active life. People made constant demands on him. In the middle of such a busy life, Jesus somehow found the opportunity to get away from the pressure and to be alone, to pray, to spend time with God, to gain perspective, to be renewed, to regenerate his energy and that of his followers. Jesus’ invitation comes as a welcome relief to frazzled, preoccupied people: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). The invitation is even more compelling in Eugene Peterson’s translation in The Message: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out?...  Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”

To “keep the Sabbath holy” means to recognize that the rhythm of six days of work and one day of ceasing work is written into the very core of our beings. To observe that order week by week creates in us a wholeness that is possible only when we live in accordance with this pattern of being graciously commanded by God and humbly obeying him.