In Genesis, God created the world and all living creatures within it and on the seventh day He rested. We may not be creating all living things, but if you are like me, our world can get extraordinarily busy.
My weekly disciple group has agreed to focus on keeping the sabbath holy. In other words, we’re choosing to be intentional about how we spend our “7th day”. For us, we’ve agreed to choose Sunday as our day of rest and we keep each other accountable for how we spend our day. For most of us, it looks something like this:
Silence the noise
The hardest part of being still and engaging in God is turning off all the other distractions in our lives. This can be choosing to step away from social media, our phones, or tv/streaming, or any other thing that competes for our time & attention.
Acknowledge who God is
The Creator of the world wants to spend time with us! He is worthy of our praise, our love, and our obedience. He is the Author of our story and invites us to participate in what He is creating. When we posture ourselves in an attitude of awe and wonder, we position ourselves to receive all He wants to pour into us.
Be expectant
Have you ever pursued something you didn’t think would work? How’d that turn out? We need to come boldly before the throne, lay ourselves at God’s feet, and expect to hear from Him. Not because He owes it to us, but because we know He is able to provide the rest we so desperately need.
Be observant
Disconnecting with noise allows us to observe God in other things: in His word, in nature, in time spent with others in fellowship… When we seek God He reveals Himself to us, we just need to pay attention.
Align with His plans
God has a plan and purpose for our lives. The more time we spend with Him, the more clearly we see His path ahead of us. When we are uncertain of what lies ahead we can reflect on where we’ve been and we will see that God has faithfully led us thus far – we can trust His plans are best.
Thank Him for choosing us
God does not need you and I to bring His plans to fruition. He doesn’t need us at all – He chooses us. He chose to give His son to pay our debt so that we may have eternity with Him. He chooses to allow us time to rest in Him and be filled to overflowing for our good and His glory!
Honor Him
We are beautifully and uniquely made! There is no other like you and I and God delights in our design. We can lean into the things that make us unique in effort to glorify God. If you are a writer, write a story, blog, or poem about Him. Do you sing? Spend time singing praise and worship from your heart to His. Are you creative? Make a craft reminding you of His attributes.
We observe the sabbath by keeping God the focus of our heart and mind. While the sabbath does not have to be a complete day of being sedentary, we do need to remember it is intended for rest. We can easily justify busyness for God’s glory and we manage to miss the point. When we invest our time and attention with God, He is faithful to restore and renew us for His glory!
Be blessed!
Jennifer
“Come near to God and he will come near to you.” James 4:8