Rest....and the day of

Good late morning here from sunny North Idaho where we are enjoying a beautiful early spring - unlike most of the nation.

Last night, we had three extra boys spending the night. There was lots of giggling and pillow piling and staying up late - but it went really well. This morning I discovered that 18 eggs and 26 pancakes is indeed enough to feed seven boys and two parents (if a few of them have had a bowl of cereal as an appetizer).

After breakfast, we all parted to spend some time doing things that we love and find enjoying...things there isn't much time for during the rest of the week. The boys ran outside in the sun to play kickball in the field. Bill headed out split wood. Yes, he really does love to split wood. It actually is one of his favorite pastimes - which is a good thing judging by the amount of wood on our porch at the moment.

Now it seems they've all moved on to a father/son basketball game down by the barn....and I'm blogging/writing. :)

I've talked about this briefly before, but there are probably lots of new moms here. Some of you may be wondering why a strongly professed Christian, whose mission in life is to encourage other moms in their pursuit of Christ, is sitting at home on a Sunday morning blogging while her kids run a muck in the sunshine.

Well, the short, simple answer is: We go to church on Friday nights.

But that answer isn't very simple to some, it just draws more questions. Why Friday? Is their a belief we hold that makes Friday sacred?

No.

We go to church on Fridays because it is available.  We are a part of a very large church and have five weekend services - three on Sunday and two on Friday night. There simply isn't enough seats for everyone to come on Sunday.

Now, I don't know what you'd call me - but traditional and sentimental would not be it...which is probably why this doesn't bother me at all. But, I did grow up going to church every Sunday. More than that, I grew up with the mindset that stores should all be closed and Christians should quit their job before they accepted a Sunday shift. So of course it seemed strange to me at first to shake things up. I did have to go to God's Word and really dig to make sure I understood what was biblical and what wasn't. I don't want to be outside of God's will - no matter how inconvenient it is.

When I began to dig, I began to realize that many of the things I held as Bible based beliefs were simply modern, Christian tradition. We have lots of them, you know.  For instance: Growing up, our communion table at church was always covered with a big white cloth; and before communion was served, the cloth would be ceremoniously folded up by the deacons and laid aside, unveiling the beautiful silver dishes. Do you know how that got started? In open air churches, the flies would be all over the "elements", so they began to cover them with a cloth.  But today, it has in some places become a sacred tradition - without any biblical merit. Do you know why most churches meet around 11:00 a.m. on Sunday? So the farmers could get their chores done before church - because cows still need milked and pigs still need fed, no matter what day it is.

Through my study of the New Testament (and there are lots of good passages to look up here), the shift to Sunday worship from the Saturday sabbath seams to be a way that those who had chosen Christ could show that they were different than those who were still holding to the law and had rejected Christ. It became a new tradition for them, and I believe it was a great reason.  They still gathered and met and worshiped and gave - but they did it on a new day - a day that had special meaning to them and showed the world around them that they were different.

 

As a recovering legalist, I may see things differently than some others, but here is the conclusion I've come to: God wants me to set aside a day to rest and focus on him. Around here, we choose to make Sunday our day of rest. But isn't the same day we attend worship services at our church. 

During our years of serving on staff at churches, we discovered that Sunday was our biggest work day. We would have morning services and earlier morning rehearsals and afternoon meetings and early evening study groups and evening services and after service meetings. When the day was done, we were completely worn out. There was no rest. But we looked good to all the Christians because we were at church all day. We were perpetually worn out and falling apart on the inside, but we were keeping up with tradition.

For me, rest is a discipline. I'm a worker - a hard worker. I'm task oriented. It is difficult for me to rest when I see the mess around me or things that need caught up. I've often been guilty of not taking a day to rest because I feel there is still so much to be done? What about you?

 

I guess what I'm trying to get to here in the midst of all of my rambling is that we can follow tradition and not follow God's heart. God's heart is for us to rest, so that we are effective with the rest of our week - and start with full, spiritual tanks.

I've learned that you can spend your whole Sunday at church and then come home to scramble all the laundry before the work week begins - and have had no rest. I've learned that you can go to church on Friday and spend Sunday resting and enjoying your family. You may have totally wrecked tradition, but you have honored God's heart.

....and I'm certainly not saying you can't go to church on Sunday and still rest.

What I'm saying is that we need to evaluate whether we are honoring the heart of God in our discipline of rest. What can we do to make sure that we can get that rest?

For me, it means I've had to learn to set some guidelines for myself:

1. No cleaning on Sunday....no matter what needs done (well, unless of course, you are talking about mopping up spilled grape juice, etc.). Of course that means if my mind is going to rest, I need ot make sure that I worked really hard to get the cleaning done on another day.


2. No laundry on Sunday.


3. No big meals on Sunday. This is hard for me. Really hard. Because I genuinely love to cook. But, the truth is that by the end of the day, I am tired if I put on a big dinner. I feel like I've been in the kitchen and on my feet all day - and end up resenting it. I still like to have family over, but I've learned to make a dessert the day ahead and plan the rest ahead too. Either the casserole is in the fridge ready to pop in the oven. Or we have something REALLY simple, like nachos.

Those are just a few of mine - not to set a bunch more traditional, unfounded rules. Actually for me, I could re-write them all to say: clean on Saturday, do laundry on Saturday, etc. What I'm saying is that I have to prepare to rest. I doesn't just happen - unless I get the flu.

On my rest day, I love to sit in the park and listen to my kids laugh and play. I love to spend extra time reading God's Word - when I may feel rushed the rest of the week. I like to take a nap on Bill's lap while he watches golf. I love to play with my niece and skype with my parents. There are so many things that bring rest to my spirit and rest to my body.

What about you? How do you rest? How do you plan for rest? How easy is it for you to take a day to rest?