Category: Rest

Sunday Meditation

5/18/2014

All who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant -
these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Isaiah 56:6b-7a

Rest can lead to joy because it creates a new perspective in us. Rest reminds us that we don't have to be compulsively responsible for the world and everything in it. Rest reminds us that God is in charge.

Rest also leads to joy because it leads to a renewed relationship with God. As this text puts it, God promises to lead Sabbath-keepers to his holy mountain. In rest we can be led to a place of joy in God's house of prayer. It is a beautiful image of God rejoicing with people who rest.

Rest can also lead to joy because it restores us. It renews and re-energizes us because it allows us to balance our "being" with our "doing". When we cease doing for a time, our senses are opened again to the world around us. We can see life with new gratitude and awe. And gratitude and awe produce joy.

Rest frees us to be what we are - His creation. We are people who can work and play, give and receive, weep and laugh. Today we can balance our working, giving and weeping with playing, receiving and laughing.

Lord, I want to stop doing for a time today.
I want to stop and remember that you are God.
Help me to experience the freedom and joy of being your creature.
Help to keep the Sabbath.
Bring me to your holy mountain.
Give me joy in your house of prayer.

Amen.

Copyright Dale and Juanita Ryan
National Association for Christian Recovery

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Restoration

3/5/2014

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Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest—Matthew 11:28

“He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness” (Psalm 23:2-3). How does God restore your soul, brother? Where do you find rest? How are you most able to forget, even for a few moments, the pressures of this life? Where do you get reset and realigned? How do you connect with God most easily? Where are you most able to hear his voice or feel his guidance?

Is it in praying at your breakfast table in the early morning, before anyone else wakes? Or in reading Scripture on the treadmill or in your car over the lunch hour? Is it in a few minutes of stillness and solitude in the evening? Or in boisterous community around a table, with brothers or with family? Is it in walking or running or biking through streets or through hills? Is it in listening to music? Or in making your own, singing in church? Or in something else entirely?

Recognize that you were designed by God, uniquely, to have ways--even amid the busyness—to find him, to find rest and restoration through him. You were designed to, every so often, just come home. So, open your eyes. Search your heart. He has, no doubt, already shown you how.

Okay, so what do we do?

Think back on some times when you most felt God’s peace, most felt his presence. That you’ve experienced him in particular ways, in particular places, in particular activities, means he’s spoken . . . right to you. He’s given you permission to do those things, whatever they are. He’s told you he wants you to do those things—that you’ve got to do those things. Now, you simply must choose to do them… consistently and often.

Copyright © 2013 Gather Ministries, All rights reserved.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Sunday Meditation

7/28/2013

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There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest . . .let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:9-11,16

God rested from his work.

And God invites us to rest from ours. In our time of need God invites us to experience the rest-full-ness that comes from receiving mercy and grace.

But we resist. Rest is such a reversal of our expectations. We don't expect mercy and grace. We expect criticism. We don't expect to be invited to approach with confidence; we expect rejection. We don't expect rest, we expect to receive a list of demanding tasks to perform. Becoming the kind of people who are capable of rest will require us to change. It will require effort on our part.

First, we will need to change the way we see ourselves. We are attached to the illusion that we have no limits. We may not claim to be immortal, but if you examine our behavior, we act as if we need less rest than God. God rested. We don't. Clearly something is wrong. If we are to become the kind of people who are capable of rest, it will take some effort to change the way we see ourselves.

Second, to increase our capacity for rest, we will need to change our behavior. Rest is not an idea. It is a behavior. It will take some effort to change the way we live. We will need to learn the skills that make it possible for us to say no to over commitment. We will need to build rest into the rhythm of our lives.

God rested. We need to do the same.

Help me to acknowledge my need for rest, Lord.
Help me to make quiet spaces in my life
when I cease all my doing
and allow myself to be.
Help me to make the effort to rest today.

Amen.

Copyright Dale and Juanita Ryan
National Association for Christian Recovery

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Smart phones are ruining three-day weekends

5/27/2013

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Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of summer and all it evokes: vacations, slower workweeks, casual dress codes, getting the pool ready and pulling out the outdoor furniture.

It would seem an ideal time to take a break, but our ability to unplug and relax is under assault. A three-day weekend? We can barely get through three waking hours without working, new research shows. The average smartphone user checks his or her device 150 times per day, or about once every six minutes. Meanwhile, government data from 2011 says 35 percent of us work on weekends, and those who do average five hours of labor, often without compensation -- or even a thank you. The other 65 percent were probably too busy to answer surveyors’ questions.

There's plenty of debate among economists and psychologists over whether the economy is to blame, or whether we did this to ourselves. There's little arguing that the concept of a Sabbath is in serious danger.

“It's like an arms race…everything is an emergency," said Tanya Schevitz, spokeswoman for Reboot, an organization trying to help people unplug more often. "We have created an expectation in society that people will respond immediately to everything with no delay. It's unhealthy, and it's unproductive, and we can't keep going on like this."

There's a long list of horribles associated with our new, always-on-digital lives: You are dumber.You are more stressed. You are losing sleep, and more depressed.

People seem to know they need tech breaks, which have plenty of cute names now, like "Digital Detox" or "Tech Sabbath." Consumers pay for software like "Freedom," which cuts their computers off the Net for a pre-set amount of time (really, you could just unplug yours). Reboot even sponsors a National Day of Unplugging, which will occur in March next year. But no one seems to think the problem is getting any better.

It’s easy to blame the economy. Workers competing for too few jobs feel like they can't say no to their boss, even if it's a trivial request during a long weekend. It’s equally easy to blame gadgets, particularly smartphones, which have virtually tethered employees to their desks. It took labor unions 100 years to fight for nights and weekends off, some say, while smartphones took them away in about three years.

But those explanations are, at a minimum, incomplete. Some experts think these wounds are self-inflicted. Laura Vanderkam, who recently published the eBook, "What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekends," says that many executives she's worked with have learned they can unplug for a weekend without dire consequences.

"Many of us have an exaggerated sense of our own importance," she said, speaking on the eve Memorial Day weekend. "I can tell you that come Tuesday morning, the Earth will still be revolving, whether you have checked your email or not."

Besides driving each other crazy, we are also robbing our brains of critical downtime that encourages creative thinking when we skip weekends and vacations. At extreme levels of exhaustion, rest-deprived brains experience memory loss and hallucinations. But without regular rest, brains fail at more basic tasks. A study at the University of California, San Francisco, found that new experiences fail to become long-term memories unless brains have downtime for review.

Vanderkam also argues that taking breaks makes you more focused when you work. People who work 50 or 60 hours rarely get more done than people who work 40 hours, she argues.

Reboot's vision is a digital-age Sabbath, Schevitz said, but as she explained it on the phone, she was interrupted by a text message. ("Even I struggle with this," she confessed.)

“We need a modern day-rest that brings balance back to life,” she said.

Memorial Day weekend is a good time to start. She urged people to start small. Don't try to go 72 hours without e-mail; begin by promising your family one tech-free meal every day this weekend.

“I think that a three-day weekend provides a unique opportunity for people to unplug and decompress because there is a tradition of people going away. So the expectation by the boss that you will be reachable at a moment's notice is likely to be less," she said. "I do think there's hope. When people are given achievable steps, they start seeing that there's a difference.”

This post was written by NBC reporter Bob Sullivan. For the original post, go to: http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/24/18463775-how-the-smartphone-killed-the-three-day-weekend?lite

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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God's lap

5/25/2013

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I had the opportunity, last night, to hang out one on one with my son while my wife went to a women’s bible study. Like always, it is fun to play with him and have a “boys only” club while mommy was away. When mommy is gone, we do cool boy stuff like build forts, play indoor basketball on his toddler hoop, and eat nutritionally unbalanced meals.

Yesterday, I became the resident horse and was ridden around the house until my arms felt like jello. After this experience, I needed to rest and Josiah decided he was going to play by himself for a few minutes. I took these few minutes to check my email.

After a moment of being on the computer, I began to sense that he wanted to play with me again. My main clue was the mountain of toys he decided to pile in my lap while I was typing. He had taken the time, one by one, to place every stuffed animal, puzzle piece, and book he could find in front of me to instigate me to play with something.

I laughed, because I felt like I was drowning in a sea of toys. After he had done this, he did something interesting…he wanted to climb on my lap too. There was obviously limited real estate on my lap so I had to clear everything off to accommodate him.

This situation made me think about my relationship with God. In my times of prayer, I always feel like I pile heavy burdens and relatively insignificant pleas in His lap to the point of overload. “God probably gets tired of hearing the same prayers”, I think to myself.

The truth is actually quite the opposite. God wants us to pile our burdens, requests, fears, doubts, and anger on His lap. He wants to hear from us on a regular basis. His lap is infinitely large. He enjoys hearing our voice and guiding His children.

This is only part of His nature though…because even though He enjoys when I pile everything on His loving lap, there is something He wants even more…all of me.

Climb into God’s lap today…rest in His care.

This post was written by Rev DeCrastos. You can find his original post with comments, here: http://other-words.net/2013/05/20/his-lap/

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Our Position in Christ - SIT

9/5/2012

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To SIT reveals a secret of the Christian life. The Christian life does not begin with walking, it begins with sitting. Christianity began when Jesus provided purification of sins and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. The individual Christian's life begins when we SIT with Christ.

Many Christians make the mistake of trying to walk in order to sit. But that is a reversal of what is found in Ephesians. Our reasoning tells us if we do not walk, how will we ever reach our goal? What can we attain without effort? How can we ever get anywhere if we do not move? Christianity does not begin with a big DO, but with a big DONE. We are invited to sit down and enjoy what God has done for us; not to set out to try and attain it for ourselves.

The Christian life from start to finish is based upon the principle of utter dependence on Jesus. He will give us everything we need but we can receive none of it except as we sit with Him. The work has been finished. We take on an attitude of rest. We only advance in the Christian life as we learn first of all to sit down.

This was God's principle from the beginning. In the creation, God worked from the first to the sixth day and rested on the seventh. The seventh day became the sabbath of God; it was God's rest. Adam was created at the end of the sixth day. So, that means Adam began his life with the sabbath; for God works before He rests, while man must first enter into God's rest, and then he can work.

And here is the gospel: that God has gone one stage further and has completed also the work of redemption, and that we need do nothing whatever to merit it, but can enter by faith directly into His finished work.

And here is the secret, the point of today's post: deliverance from sin is NOT to do something, but to sit, to rest in what God has done. Once you have ceased your struggle with sin, once you have reached despair, sitting helps you to realize that Jesus has already done everything.

Jesus longs that we will just let Him do and do and do. He wants to be the Giver eternally, and He wants to be the Doer eternally. If only we saw how rich and how great He is, we would leave all the giving and all the doing to Him.

"God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love for us... made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus."

This post is adapted from the book, SIT, WALK, STAND by Watchman Nee.

Click here for part two of this post.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

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Sunday Meditation

4/22/2012

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All who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant - these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer.

Rest can lead to joy because it creates a new perspective in us. Rest reminds us that we don't have to be compulsively responsible for the world and everything in it. Rest reminds us that God is in charge.

Rest also leads to joy because it leads to a renewed relationship with God. As this text puts it, God promises to lead Sabbath-keepers to his holy mountain. In rest we can be led to a place of joy in God's house of prayer. It is a beautiful image of God rejoicing with people who rest.

Rest can also lead to joy because it restores us. It renews and re-energizes us because it allows us to balance our "being" with our "doing". When we cease doing for a time, our senses are opened again to the world around us. We can see life with new gratitude and awe. And gratitude and awe produce joy.

Rest frees us to be what we are - creatures. We are creatures who can work and play, give and receive, weep and laugh. Today we can balance our working, giving and weeping with playing, receiving and laughing.

Lord, I want to stop doing for a time today.
I want to stop and remember that you are God.
Help me to experience the freedom and joy of being your creature.
Help to keep the Sabbath.
Bring me to your holy mountain.
Give me joy in your house of prayer.
Amen.

Copyright Dale and Juanita Ryan
National Association for Christian Recovery

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

0 Comments

Sunday Meditation

Restoration

Sunday Meditation

Smart phones are ruining three-day weekends

God's lap

Our Position in Christ - SIT

Sunday Meditation

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