Posted tagged ‘Sabbath rest’

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Unplanned Open Day

January 23, 2019

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                     January 23, 2019

                             

Yesterday schools, the public libraries, military bases, and other spots that are usually open…weren’t! The Colorado Springs area got blasted with a blizzard during the night and into Tuesday. The wind gusts scooted the swing across the deck behind our house. The cover on our hot tub was blown open (and I can’t wait to see what our next utility bill will be)! Roads were closed as snow drifts were shaped and created.

It was a planned day that suddenly became unplanned. Snow days have that effect. What hadn’t become a possibility pushes all the plans out of the way as it goes from the back row to the front and only seat!

There is something refreshing about a planned day that suddenly becomes open and free, unless you’re one of those drivers who gets stuck on the side of the road when the temperature is 4 degrees. There is something freeing about realizing that there is nothing you can do the whole day. You are homebound, away from the classroom or office, whether you want to be or not…and you breathe in a deep sense of peace!

Our lives are consumed by schedules and tasks. When I pastored I would make a list at the beginning of each week that would be filled with all the jobs to complete, the people to visit, and the meetings to attend. It covered a page, two columns wide, top to bottom. I’d cross off completed tasks, but each week the page would get filled back up. 

To be told that it’s okay to chill for a day, to be unproductive, to sit back in the recliner and read a James Patterson novel…it brings a smile to our face. We come face-to-face with the fragile nature of our plans and the harsh truth that we aren’t always the ones who can be in control.

Yesterday I worked on a jigsaw puzzle, read for a couple of hours, took a long nap, and wrote the first few hundred words in a new story I’m writing. In sharing what I did I must say that I didn’t seek to do them so I could have a sense of accomplishment. Each of them happened in the midst of my relaxed outlook.

It was as if I received sabbath rest on a Tuesday. There is a hint of God’s intentions in it, a calmness in the midst of the blizzard. It reinforces my belief that some of life’s biggest surprises come in the unplanned moments.

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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The Rest in the Story

March 7, 2016

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                           March 7, 2016

                                       

     Yesterday I was blessed to be a part of a congregation that was welcoming back one of its pastors from a three-month sabbatical. Since I retired two months ago I’ve been on a sabbatical…sort of! I recommend it…before retirement!

The pastor focused his message on “rest.” Scripture talks about “sabbath rest”, a concept that we read about with a suspicious eye. One of the points he made that I typed into my iPhone was the fact that after Adam and Eve were created they started their lives with a day of unearned rest.

His point hit me! we view rest as something that is earned after a hard day of work, or a day at the end of a long work week. Rest, however, is like a breath of the grace of God. It comes to us because he loves us, not because we’ve worked hard for it.

Of course, our culture doesn’t think along those lines. We’re not sure if Sunday is the first day of the week to begin a new journey with rest; or the seventh day of the week to rest up after six days of battles and struggles.Most of us talk about Monday as being the start of a new week; Sunday is the end of the weekend!

One of the factors in my deciding to retire was rest, or lack of! Monday, traditionally, was my day off…my day of rest, noticeably at the end of my “pastor week.” On Tuesday when a new week was staring me in the face I wasn’t ready to go at it again. If I was an iPhone being charged I was only back up to fifty percent battery life. I did not rest well, or enough.

That thinking is hard for blue-collar Americans who go at it each Monday morning hard and long for forty plus hours divided over five or six days. To rest is too often seen as a luxury, as opposed to a necessity…or even a gift from God.

I’m now in the midst of that weird period- that time when I’m not required to do anything, but feel guilty if I don’t do something. “Doing something” is an affliction of our culture’s mentality. We connect value and meaning to it. When we rest the question that gets asked often is “how long are you going to rest before you get on with things?” Rest is seen as something we’ll get to do a lot after we die…R-I-P!

Personally, I recognize that I’m in a time of being redefined. People view me differently. I’m no longer “Pastor Bill”, even though it is a huge part of who I am. I’m enjoying this new journey, and yet I’m still a little uncomfortable with it. The book I’m reading that is laying beside me on the coffee counter here at Starbucks is entitled The 12 Week Year: Get More Done In 12 Weeks than Others Do In 12 Months. The pastor’s group I belong to is reading it. It w3ill be interesting to see if it has the effect of pulling me in to the fray once again!

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Death, Freedom, Grace, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Vacating

July 31, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                   July 31, 2013

      Carol and I don’t often get away…at least far enough away. Not that I don’t enjoy being a pastor, or enjoy the people of my congregation. It’s really not their problem.

It’s me!

I am not good at unplugging. I find it very difficult to turn off the knob (old technology term) that is labeled “Thinking About What Needs To Be Done.”

It’s like the word association game. Hear a word and say the first word that comes to your mind. For me, however, it’s seeing an object and thinking about a meeting coming up, or a message to be preached. I smell popcorn and think about movies, which makes me think about the video series our small group will be using in the next month, which makes me think about the study guide questions I still need to repair.

Fruit reminds me of communion. Dinner rolls at a restaurant remind me of…communion. I drive along a river and it reminds me of the water restrictions we’re under back home, and whether the sprinklers are properly turned off. I pass a school and I think of the staff appreciation luncheon we do each year at Audubon School down the street from us on the teacher work day they have before the students come back.

See! I’m plugged! It is one thing that Carol is concerned about whenever I retire. Can I really unplug?

In our culture where we are almost always connected by technology (Except on Union Boulevard around Lexington about two miles from our house. Why is it I can get phone reception in Antarctica, but not right here in the midst of civilized technology?), everything seems either urgent or known. If it is known that means it is expected to be put on the fast track to solved. If it is urgent it needs to be accomplished…now!

I get into that mindset of accomplishing tasks, doing the weekly jobs again, and then when a day off comes I’m still checking emails and thinking about the week ahead.

Why is it that we find it hard to vacate? Okay, I’ll use that other word…”rest!” It may say something about our reluctance to slow down and listen. We’re not a very good listening culture. We listen to music…as we’re working. We listen to the radio…as we’re driving. We listen to our kids…as we’re working on our laptop. We listen to the problems of others…as we’re texting someone else about our own problems.

Listening is an undervalued asset. Slowing down is seen as not getting us anyplace.

Perhaps I will try to “vacate” each day this coming month…not for the day, but for a few moments, an evening walk, or just in a quiet place by myself.

It won’t be early in the morning. With a day of tasks ahead it would be a recipe for defeat. Early evening works best for who I am.

I’ll let you know how it goes. For today Carol and I are going to vacate to about five different places that we need to get to.

Uh-oh, that didn’t sound restful, did it?

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, marriage, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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Lord, Give Me Rest!

June 10, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                   June 9, 2013

 

Resting is something that not many of us do well. We live at such a hyper-pace that resting seems weird. It seems…useless!

For example, I hear so many commercials for a drink called “Five Hour Energy”. The essence of the commercials seem to be about a man who has trouble waking up in the morning, or runs low on energy in the afternoon, and he drinks a 1.93 ounce bottle of Five Hour Energy. Rest is chased away.

It could be just if you are tired…you just might need to rest!

Starbucks has made a mint off of people who can’t rest.

God knew what he was doing when he called for a Sabbath rest. He knew what he was doing when he commanded his people to observe a “Sabbath Year” (Leviticus 25:1-7) to give the fields and vineyards a year of rest.

When we don’t rest we’re prone to error- error in judgment, error in actions, error in the things we say and the temptations we’re vulnerable to fall to. And our lives are so hectic that even when we do slow down we have a hard time resting. Three or four years ago I took a one month study leave. I found that it took me the first two weeks to get out of work mode in order to slow down to meditate, pray, and study. As I sat on a couch reading my mind kept thinking of things that suddenly seemed urgent…like checking to make sure all the windows were closed and whether the oven got turned off. I had a very difficult time just slowing down.

Oddly enough, one of the reasons I’m trying to write a blog post each day for thirty days is because it makes me sit down and focus.

This week take a walk that has no purpose to it except walking and praying.

Sit down in your living room and leave the remote control where it is. Don’t touch it. Just sit for a few minutes.

Sit on your front porch, or back deck, or even in the front yard and just watch and listen.

Take the Bible and read one of the psalms…and then read it again…and then read it again. Slowly, meditatively, allowing God to make certain words stand out.

Go to bed early and read a book. Not a murder mystery, but a biography or something like Lake Wobegon Days.

Eat dinner at a snail’s pace. Make sure there is a couple of nights this week where the calendar is free in the evening, and eat a slow dinner together with your family.

It’s Sunday evening and I’m ready for bed at 7:11. It’s been a work-filled day. My Sabbath usually comes on Monday.

Lord, give me some rest…and let my weary body be renewed.

Categories: Christianity, Community, Freedom, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, The Church, Uncategorized
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