Listen

Keep the Sabbath day and treat it as holy, exactly as the Lord your God commanded: Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Don’t do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your oxen or donkeys or any of your animals, or the immigrant who is living among you—so that your male and female servants can rest just like you.

Deuteronomy 5:12-14

Think

“Pressing pause” on our lives comes easily for some, but not all of us. I have one faithful friend who is so hard-wired for action that anytime he sits still and quiet, he quickly falls asleep; so “Sabbath rest” for him still contains some type of action. I have another friend, also a person of deep faith, who tries to spend hours each day in stillness and solitude at Sabbath rest, listening for God in the silence and offering her time in reflection as a restorative time for her and her world.

While it may happen quite differently for you and for me, scripture is quite clear that God requires us to stop the routine of life and experience something different. By doing something different in our week, we offer our lives as a fresh opportunity for God to do something new in us. It is not easy, but God says it is necessary.

Tony Vincent

Pray

God, help me to “press pause” in my life: to breathe differently, think differently, and act differently. Let Sabbath time shape me in your image, and let that impact all my relationships for your good. Amen.

Go

Words of life, words of hope
give us strength, help us cope;
in this world where’er we roam
God’s ancient words will guide us home.

from “Ancient Words” by Lynn Deshazo (2001)