My Sabbath Journey

Sabbath in Hebrew literally means"time of rest" or "cessation"... Ask most Christians what "Sabbath" means and you'd hear "Sunday" "Church day"  ... if asked why Sunday, many may looked puzzled, a few may give an actual answer of "because that was the day of our Lord's resurrection"...

The Fourth Commandment (the one that tells us to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy) is one that brought great controversy in the home of my youth.  My mother, an avid football fan, and my father, who was never much concerned for football, did not see eye to eye on the subject.  The church I was a part of only made the matter more confusing to me.  I felt a sense of tension constantly. The Lord saved me when I was young.  I wanted to honor Him in all things, but the Sabbath I couldn't understand its meaning to a Christian.

I spent afternoons at times next to my mom watching her beloved Eagles play so that I could spend time with her.  Other times, I took a walk with my dad or spent time reading books about God and His word, but I felt no clarity as long as I lived with my parents.  I just felt tension.

When I was put on a secular campus during my college years with a handful of Christians only, I knew I had a chance to live apart from the Sabbath tension and search my heart and God's mind on the matter. As I awoke on Sundays and found a ride to church, I was struck by the quietness of the campus, not because of my classmates regard for the Sabbath but because of late nights partying and the ensuing recovery... Personally, I inconsistently kept the Sabbath and sought to rest and focus on my Lord.  The reason was usually based on the tyranny of the urgent and my lack of being able to organize my life and work load on other days, not because I had come to any strong conviction myself.

However, it was during my later college years that I came to an understanding that I was asking all of the wrong questions.  It was never about what I should or shouldn't do, but about a God who so infinitely loved His creation that He set aside a day for Himself and us to draw away and be in His presence.  To be able to be with Him and as much as is humanly possible to think upon Him, His kingdom,  His word and enjoy the fellowship of His people in a way that the normal demands of the other days of an ordinary work week does not allow.  I realized that if there ever was a commandment of the Lord that spoke of His love and desire for the good of His people, it was this one.  I was liberated.

For the rest of my days in college and the years after college as I was in church settings and among christian friends, I knew what I believed.  I sought to keep the Sabbath and knew great joy in doing so.   It was no burden to me or something to wrestle with but it became an incomparable gift to me.  As a single woman, I had the privilege of spending the time between worship services taking long walks, meditating on His Word, journaling, writing poems, reading good books and fellowship with and serving with His people.  I can't tell you of one other person that I knew and saw regularly on Sundays that followed the same pattern, but that didn't matter.  If someone asked about my choices, I would tell them of my journey to freedom to keep the Sabbath unto the Lord.

I will never forget the night that I sat in my church when it was Super Bowl Sunday and I was part of a church that eventually used this particular Sunday as an outreach to unbelievers, and the pastor shook his head in disbelief, pain and sorrow as he surveyed the thread-bare congregation that typically was packed to capacity for an evening service.  It cut his heart.  It wasn't a matter ever addressed from the pulpit in that place.  It wasn't a matter the church held any particular view on to my knowledge.  But here was a man standing to preach on the Sabbath and he felt the dying of a day meant for something far deeper than what it had become to so many Christians.

I invite you to see this day God made to draw us deeper and closer to Himself and to give us a taste of the glory of the age to come.  Rest on this day from much more than the demands and cares of this life and your striving to be what you never can be.  Rest from your attempts even as a Christian to be better and good enough apart from Christ. Rest knowing that the version you will obtain here on this earth is but a morsel of what it will one day be when eternal rest is yours.