Do we ever take a day of rest in seven? Most vacations I’ve taken like Australia and New Zealand, I was getting up at 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. to catch early flights and touring from sun up to sun down. I felt like taking a vacation from the vacation! Americans are way too driven in life. We have our fast food drive through, buffets, minute markets, one-stop grocery stores with clothes and self-serve gas stations. We have our power /energy drinks, Mountain Dew, and Red Bull to keep up with the fast-paced life style. The mega churches are catering to having church on Saturday night to meet the demands of a busy city. I love this one church on my side of town (Hope Baptist) that has drive through prayer. They just had their signs up again a couple weeks ago on Saturday. “Drive through and we will pray for you in your car.” If I remember correctly, I believe California had some drive-in type churches on Sunday like an outdoor drive-in.
Some computer animation companies provide a gym right in their facility with a basketball court and cater in meals for lunch in California, because they know if employees go outside during lunch, it is hard to get them to come back! My daughter was complaining to me how “driven” the mega supermarkets are to keep open during the holidays to make money. It always cuts into her holidays with the family to work for Meijer’s. I’ve had two daughters who worked for them. Very few stores consider a Sabbath or a day of rest including holidays except for places like Chic Fillet. Many Europeans take as much as a three-month vacation in a year.
My daughter gave me the movie, Eat, Pray, Love, and a woman at work offered to let me borrow the book to read. The Italians call it "dolce far niente." The sweetness of doing nothing. Usually Saturday mornings, I like to relax, get a cup of coffee, and go sit in my hot tub. It’s a regular routine I enjoy. Same way after I host a party at my house. I’m ready to veg out at times. Some times more than others! I saw on a high school friend’s funeral memorial for his father a quote from Solomon. (A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, Eccl. 2:24).
There is a time to do nothing and relax, but the Indy race car drivers become winners, because they practice. To become a good musician it requires practice. To become good at carving wood figurines, it requires practice. To have our muscles become strong, it requires working out/exercise. The same in the natural world is the same in the spiritual world. It requires action. Faith without action (works) is dead (useless) James 2:20. When you have faith, you have action – you have deeds. Faith will cause you to obey and act on the word of God. Faith will cause you to apply the word of God to your life and God’s word will change you. I heard someone say that, “At times I pray I am able to handle the situation better so prayer is sometimes to change me and how I deal with life difficulties.” Let me be a comfort for a person who is going through a trial like Brian Piccolo helped Gayle Sayers get through his knee injury in playing football for the Chicago Bears and then he in turn was a source of strength for Brian Piccolo in dealing with terminal cancer.
He replied, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice." Luke 8:21
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. James 1:23-26
Jesus said his “yoke is easy and his burden is light” to learn of him and we will find rest for our souls. (Matthew 11:30). I’ve gone through what I call “burn-out” several times in life and that is doing too much with work, part-time college, raising children, home improvement projects, and being a homemaker and wife. It’s many times becoming a Martha in life in having too much on my shoulders. I found my children wanted me to continue to carry that type of load without my husband and I wanted to put a sign on the door of my house, “Mary’s Going Out of Business Sale.” “This store is not going to be open for a while. The lights are on, but no one is home emotionally right now.” My daughter Sandy rather bore the blunt of being the last child out of seven I raised so she experienced some of my burnt out years. My parents were the same way with my being the youngest and being born later in life (when my mother was 39) and I sure made their life a living “h” during my teen years.
During those times in life, I would gladly go to a desert island for a while, just for a break from the rat race at home. Then there are times in my life right now that silence is so deafening, the silence could blow out my eardrums. Praise God at least God has not been silent in his voice speaking to my spirit!
Unlike the movie, meditation for a Christian, it is not emptying out your mind, it’s the contrary. It’s the very first Psalm in the Bible, it’s filling up our mind with the word of God. (but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers. Psalm 1:2-3)
When I first became a Christian because of some of the deep sin I was in, I found constantly reading the Bible, especially the book of John and Paul’s epistles, helped me overcome my former life. I previously had saturated my mind with the world. Many people have saturated their minds with pornography. I like what my sister used to say, “The bird of paradise may fly over my head, but I don’t have to let it build a nest in there.” Obviously, nests or cobwebs can get in our minds or strongholds and we have to get the bird nests (cobwebs) out. Once you fill your mind with the word of God, the direction of God will be clearer in your life. The word of God is the will of God (the New Testament is the will of God that Jesus shed his blood). Like my husband left a will and testament that is what my husband’s will is, that is how you find the will of God in your own life.
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Cor. 10:4-5
I was raised on television so it comes naturally for me to watch television and be conformed to this world and not to read and meditate on the word of God. I’ve had to reprogram myself to enjoy the word of God.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2
Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Ephesians 4:23
There is a promise of peace if you meditate on the word of God. To get over post-traumatic stress syndrome of watching my husband have a heart attack in front of me, I put on the word of God on CD every night to listen to it. It is similar to the movie with Matt Damon, Hereafter that the visions he had of heaven were so disturbing that the only thing that calmed his mind was listening to the citing of Charles Dickens book. Getting peace in life in the world and coming out of my “bubble” of a good relationship I found it is the word of God is my refuge from the storms of finances and strife of other people.
You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3
Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble (offend them). Psalm 119:165
Loving the word of God is loving Jesus. Jesus was the word made flesh. If you exalt the word, she will exalt you. It’s not just having a head knowledge of the word, its having a heart knowledge and part of that is putting the word in practice every day in your life to walk in love. God’s word is very practical. How much can I practice the word of God in my life? How much can I act or do the word of God?
Esteem her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you. Proverbs 4:8
The Prayer: Celine Dion& Josh Groban
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbviXG_56ss&feature=related
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