Sabbath

All things not God, all things made by God need rest...and maybe especially us. Because, unlike goats and beetles and flies and lizards, we try to outwit and outrun our limits. We think we're the exception, the one for whom busyness will translate into fruitfulness. We think because we've figured ways to build impossibly tall buildings and dig immensely deep, broad holes, to spy on babies in the womb, to tease our strands of DNA, to send whole computer files from New York to Nairobi in a split second - we think because our industry and ingenuity seem boundless, we can also figure out a way around our God imposed need for stillness. We can't. The need is not conjured away by medication, technology, discipline, cleverness, sheet willfulness. It always come back to take its due.

Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God

J. R. Vassar visited our church last weekend and preached to us about sabbath rest. As I sat in my chair, already overwhelmed with life and exhausted, his sermon hit me square in the face. Thinking about carving out a true sabbath makes me want to cry, both out of the uneasiness I feel at the necessity of saying no to protect our sabbath (and my lack of confidence in myself to follow through) and out of great desire for a time to rest. Many thanks to J. R. who reminded me firmly that God did not suggest that we rest, he commanded it.

Watch J. R. Vassar's sermon here.