Making Intentional Changes to Our Human Tendencies

Have you ever been on a vacation and had trouble relaxing?  Women especially seem to struggle with this.  Our minds are planning what our family will eat every meal, what time we should start getting the children ready to go have some fun and how to keep the sink from piling up with dirty dishes in the condo.

It can take a minute to slow down our minds and rest our bodies.  I’ve experienced vacations where I didn’t feel as if I was actually beginning to relax until the day before we left for home!

I’m doing a four-week study on Sabbath from Breathe by Priscilla Shirer.  Last week I wrote about some of my take-aways from our first week in Becoming the Boss of Busyness on the blog.  This week she took us a step further.  We took a look at the work it might take in order to incorporate margin in our lives.  Seems ironic to have to work for it, doesn’t it?

Incorporating rest into our lives leans against the very core of what the world tells us we should be doing.  We will have to be intentional to create margin in our lives.  It will take some discipline and determination to put it there.

Last week we learned that Sabbath was created by God during the week of creation.  This week we fast forwarded to Deuteronomy.  We read about the Israelites who had been enslaved by the Egyptians for around 400 years before they were set free.  After they walk out of Egypt in total freedom, God takes them on a journey through the desert to teach them to rely on Him.  That He can be trusted.  That He is their God and He loves them so much that He wanted them free.

When He has Moses tell the people about resting on the 7th day, the Israelites are forced to go against the grain of everything they had ever known.  Rest?  For an entire day?  I imagine the discomfort of this concept would make them stressed out and a little dumbfounded.  Nevertheless, God provided everything they would need for the 7th day on the 6th so that they could enjoy their families and their freedom for an entire day.

Here are a few of my take aways from this week:

*Incorporating Sabbath will take discipline

*Denying our own tendencies will ultimately lead us to finding rest

*Sabbath is a reminder that we’ve been set free Galatians 5:1 

*If the Israelites had to be taught to rest, God will patiently teach us too

Sabbath is a gift from our Heavenly Father.  A reminder of the freedom He has given us.  When we obey this command, it’s an expression of our thanks to Him for this freedom and a demonstration of our trust in Him.  Our God gives His children good gifts.  Let’s keep learning how to accept this one.

A step further:

Examine what changes you’ll need to make in order to incorporate a day of rest each week.  Begin to work on a plan to move things around or take away what you can to create some margin.

Prayer:

Thank you for the freedom that you’ve given me as your child.  Forgive me when I’ve become so engrossed in the patterns of this world that I feel tethered to others’ opinions.  Show me this week what I need to do to make room for Sabbath.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen