Hello friends,
The day of jubilee was amazing. What followed, however, was downright refreshing. I had been saying that I would enjoy spending time after this first year in Seminary reading whatever I felt like, whatever I wanted, whatever I felt would be helpful/inspirational to my own spiritual growth and to my ministry.
Now, this is actually earth shattering personal growth. If you look at the top of the blog here, where I post the four categories that get the most attention, you will notice that book reviews are in dead last. I don't typically choose to read. I actually hate reading most days. But all the same, after this first year, with well over 3,000 pages of material that professors were requiring me to read, I wanted to read a few thousand of my own.
And so Saturday, I accomplished only two things. I read almost an entire book (book review tomorrow if I can get my act together!) and I bathed myself.
That was it.
It was glorious!
Sometimes you have to just put the breaks on. The danger of course (if you're anything like me) is that once the breaks go on, they never come off. But this feels different. I feel ready to go next term in seminary where I'll be taking two classes a term instead of just one. But before you can jump into that, you have to leave some room for regeneration and recovery. And that's exactly what I did.
It turns out that God was the same way. He made the idea of a Sabbath a law. You have to rest. You can't work all the time. It's not good for you. You need to take a brake. And yet, at least in our culture, we have the easiest time in the world ignoring the voice of the Shepherd, even if he's leading us to still waters. We want to be productive. We want to have meaning in our lives. And we feel that our self-worth comes from all that we do. It doesn't. Our self worth comes from his love in us.
So if you haven't done so in a while, take a day of silence. Take a day where absolutely NOTHING gets accomplished, other than your own spiritual/emotional fulfillment. I promise, the to-do lists will still be there when you get done. Turn off the TV. Turn off the phone. Don't even think about looking at e-mail. Just relax. And while you do, thank God that he not only allows all of this, he commands it of you!
Godspeed,
Jason
0 comments:
Post a Comment