The Kind of Sabbath I Need

For most part of my Christian life, I've understood Sabbath as a time of resting and ceasing for the busy-ness of life. 

No doubt, those are critical elements of Sabbath keeping but I've come to realize I've missed the most important part of Sabbath - delighting in God.

I'm coming to realize Sabbath time is much more than just the mere cessation of activity. 

Sabbath is more about setting aside time to delight in the love and the presence of God.

I could be in the same room with my wife and my children and still not be with them. I can be away from the computer, without my ipad or my smartphone, away from emails, phone calls, and texts, with the tv off, but unless I am engaged fully with them, I might not as well be in the room.

They not only want my physical presence in the room, but they want all of my attention as well. They want my engagement. They want my participation. They want my delight.

The reality is that I want and need the same thing from them as well. Because there is no genuine relationship and intimacy without it.

That's the part of Sabbath I've been missing. It's not that I haven't had set aside to rest and stop from my normal activities of the week, because I have been doing that. It's just that I've not been focused on delighting in the most awesome and incredible God in the universe. 

I get to hang out with God! I get to be in his presence. I get to delight in the love of God!!!

That's the part God desires from me and that's what I need the most in my relationship with God.

I love that. We can cease from busy-ness and the cessation of busyness doesn’t make for a Sabbath. Sabbath is not only stopping from, but allowing the Holy Spirit of God to re-create us and to refresh us. And the beauty of the Sabbath is that it is the presence of God that allows us to be re-created and and refreshed. 

It is delighting in the love and the joy of Christ that reconnects us to God in such a way where we are not merely doers, but “be"ers as God’s beloved children.

This is the kind of Sabbath I need to practice more