Sabbath. It is the one theme that the Lord consistently
speaks about to me—and on a regular basis. Some messages come hard to one like me who
seems to be intent with doing things the hard way. I was looking for something
else when I came upon it…two of my most treasured books. I read through the
thoughts and nuggets that I underlined in times gone by. I must have read these
jewels several times, and yet, each time I find something new, something that
urges me into sabbatismos. I wanted to share with you a few of my
favorites and hope that the words below will help you rest this sabbath
weekend. Rest in Him. You will have no regrets.
Faith is finally this: resting so utterly in the
character of God—in the ultimate goodness of God—that you trust Him even when
He seems untrustworthy.
Faithfulness is, by definition, the predictable, the habitual,
the sturdy, the routine. It is the evidence of things seen, but seen so often
we’ve grown blind to them. It is the substance of things expected, expected so
unthinkingly that we now take them for granted.
God’s faithfulness is one divine characteristic that we
rest in so completely that our rest has become apathy. “In him we live
and move and have our being.” We just hustle in, heads down, duty-bound,
and clear the table.
Thankfulness is a secret passageway into a room you can’t
find any other way. It is the wardrobe in Narnia. It allows us to discover the
rest of God—those dimensions of God’s world, God’s presence, God’s character that
are hidden, always. From the thankless. Ingratitude is an eye disease every bit
as much as a heart disease., It sees only flaws, scars, scarcity. Likewise, the
god of the thankless is wary, stingy, grudging, bumbling, nitpicky. He’s by turns
meddlesome and apathetic, suspicious then indifferent, grubbing about in our
domestic trifles one moment, oblivious to our personal catastrophes the next…But
to give thanks, to render it as Scripture tells us we ought—in all circumstances,
for all things, to the glory of God—such thanksgiving becomes a declaration of
God’s sovereign goodness…You cannot practice thankfulness on a biblical scale
without its altering the way you see. The more you do it, the more you find
cause for doing it.
The devil distracts. God interrupts. And for some reason,
we fall prey to the one and grow oblivious to the other. Brother Lawrence found
the most simple device for reversing this. In his small, wise book, The
Practice of the Presence of God, he speaks about a companionship with Jesus
that is without boundary—not in time, or place, or circumstance. Anywhere,
everywhere, in anything, you can be with God. God wishes it and invites it and
is present and available right now for it.
My pursuit of God had an end-of-the-world kind of desperation.
Like Racheal crying to Jacob, “Give me children or I die,” I cried to God, “Give
me your Spirit or I die.” I was spiritually lean, wily, stealthy, alert, and
yet also vulnerable, wide open. A child and warrior both. Somewhere I got dull.
The child got old, the warrior timid.
It is the times that we feel drained and tired, that we
refresh ourselves—encourage ourselves in the Lord.
The king and all the people with him arrived at their
destination exhausted. And there he refreshed himself {2
Sam. 16:13-14 NIV}. They arrived exhausted. But David refreshes himself—the
word in Hebrew is nephesh. It is a word related to both breath and soul. Literally,
David breathes his soul back to wholeness. He restores the inmost places.
This sabbath, stop and listen for God’s voice. He has much
to say when we listen.
I want it. I want God’s voice to be to me as it was with John, a thing so real and solid and inescapable
I can virtually see it. I want to live by faith, not by sight. And faith come
by hearing. I want to have ears so tuned to the Voice that when God speaks
there is not ignoring it. Speak
Lord for your servant is listening.
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