Yesterday, I baked bread while it rained. As the drops fell outside steadily and nourished the dry ground, I worked the bread dough and nourished my dry and tired soul. As the yeast activated and the dough rose, so did my spirits. As the smell of warm bread wafted through the house, it enveloped me in its embrace and refreshed me.
Maybe baking bread on a rainy day isn’t what helps restore you, but I bet you know what does. How long has it been since you took some time to slow down and let it restore you?
I’ve been reading The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero and the last chapter I read was on the importance of taking Sabbath rest regularly. He quotes his friend Sam Lam: “If you do not keep the Sabbath, God will keep it for you… If we do not keep the Sabbath, we are incurring a deficit and God Himself will stop us, through a crisis, a health issue, an emergency, or anything that gets our attention” (page 171).
Ever been there? I have. Both personally and watching it play out for someone I care about. We are not designed to burn the candle at both ends. Yet some of us live life like we are one of those fancy candles that have 3 or 4 wicks–but at both ends of the candle.
God designed the Sabbath back in Genesis 2 and commanded the Israelites to keep it in Exodus 20. Then in 2 Chronicles 36, we find this verse:
“The land enjoyed its Sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.” (v21)
This verse is found as Israel falls and is carried off to exile in Babylon, as the prophet Jeremiah foretold would happen. Many times in scripture, it is recorded that the kings and people of Israel and Judah “did evil in the eyes of the LORD” but it doesn’t always say what that evil is. 2 Chronicles 36:21 leads us to understand that observing the Sabbath, a unique directive from God to His people that no one else at the time observed, was something Israel continued to fail at again and again. The land needed to rest, as God intended that it should.
Leviticus 25 details The Sabbath Year, which was to happen every 7 years where the people were to not work the land but instead, allow it to rest–not unlike the rest God desired His people to have once a week. If 2 Chronicles 36 comments on the land resting for 70 years, then I’d say its safe to assume that Israel was not observing the Sabbath correctly, and by that, declaring that they didn’t trust God to provide for their needs. God designed and demonstrated rest for His creation at the beginning, but sin led creation to think it knew better than God.
Let’s be honest–we’re no different. We believe we can handle and manage everything ourselves, that if we stop for a moment everything will fall apart. But as a Christian, we declare our trust in God, which means we trust He is holding everything together for us. Our rest is an active declaration that we trust God to provide in the gap where we are stopped. And God declares in scripture that if we do not make time to practice Sabbath rest, He will slow down, like He did for the land in 2 Chronicles 36.
I’ve experienced that forced slow down before. It’s not a good time. (You can read more about my journey with mono here.) But I have learned from that experience and I now choose to seek Sabbath rest before it gets chosen for me. Like embracing the rainy day and making bread in my kitchen! At the end of the day, I felt peace inside and satisfaction from knowing that God has met my needs and will continue to do so no matter what comes my way.
Seek the Sabbath rest, dear friends. You are designed for it.
Blessings,
~Lynne
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