Time to Rest

Rest. Be still. Peace. Be anxious for nothing.

Continually, the Bible calls for rest, but what does that mean to you?

At the start of Genesis, after the creation of the world, God set aside a specific day for rest. Let's look at the actual word used in Hebrew:

Shabath - to cease, desist, rest

"And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested (Shabath) from all his work which God created and made." Genesis 2:3

This is the word used when speaking of the seventh day of the week when God rested and created the, you guessed it, Sabbath. It doesn't indicate rest due to weariness. That word in Hebrew is:

Nuach- rest, settle, soothed
Naphash - to be refreshed, to breathe

"Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease [shabath] from labor in order that your ox and your donkey may rest [nuach], and the son of your female slave, as well as your stranger, may refresh [naphash] themselves." Exodus 23:12

In a way, Shabath is a day to remember more is to come. The Shabath or Sabbath is like a taste of heaven. There is no toil there. We truly rest from all our work.

Wait, but what about the work? What is work?

"Six days you shall work, and the seventh day is Shabbat to the Lord your God. [On that day] you shall not do any work (Melacha)." Exodus 20:9

The Hebrew word for work here is Melacha:

Melacha - workmanship or creation

Now, what exactly workmanship or creation is could be debatable, right? I mean, if we're getting down to the nitty-gritty, we need to know what we shouldn't be doing. Orthodox Jews have a propensity to detail, using a fine tooth comb to determine the ins and outs of God's laws and commands. There are about 39 activities one is forbidden to do during the Sabbath, according to that denomination.

I'm going to be honest. I personally feel that is putting words in God's mouth. Observe it as you will, but having so many stipulations defeats the purpose.

God is, well, God and doesn't need rest after strenuous activity as humans do. However:

"The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Mark 2:27

He knew what humans would need, and he specified that they should rest, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

As for what rest means to me, I've been observing the Sabbath (with off and on success) since my childhood, and there's a few things you'll realize once you get into the groove of it:

1) Today, you're a kid again. Six days out of my week, I'm on the go, and when I'm not, I'm thinking about what else I need to do. On Friday night to Saturday night (which is the day I celebrate the Sabbath), I'm not supposed to do work, so what's the point of thinking about it? Freedom, fun, and play!

2) It's an excuse to say no. You want me to what? Nope. I have to what? Nope. Ahhh. I'll just sit here and read, thanks.

3) It's an entire day built around meditation or mindfulness. The whole point of the day is to stop, look around, and feel blessed. You don't always get the chance on other days to just take a deep breath and smell the roses.

4) It's an entire day built around connection: connection to God, to family, to friends, to yourself. In busyness, it's easy to disconnect from you and your loved ones. Now, you don't have the excuse of checking another to-do off your list.

5) It's a day for gratefulness. Six days out of the week was made for pushing forward, hustling, creating, and building up the world around you. On the seventh day, you look around at your success and your blessings.

6) Sometimes, you'll feel lost in the complete freedom, especially at first. Our brain and bodies are normally in gear for driving forward, but on the Sabbath you are allowed to put yourself in neutral. It can be disorienting to separate yourself from the worldly, daily grind.

7) You'll be healthier. Humans were not made to keep going 24/7 365 days a year. We were made for rest and peace. Your mind will thank you, your heart will thank you, your soul will thank you.

I hope you get a chance to observe the Sabbath and enjoy the pause and rest in your life God set aside just for you.

My Crazy Testimony

I didn't grow up "in the church," so churchy terminology feels strange and archaic to me. For the longest time, I honestly didn't know I had a testimony.

So, for those, like me, who didn't know, this is the definition of testimony according to Google:

tes·ti·mo·ny


/ˈtestəˌmōnē/


noun

noun: testimony; plural noun: testimonies

•a formal written or spoken statement, especially one given in a court of law.

•evidence or proof provided by the existence or appearance of something.

•a public recounting of a religious conversion or experience.

What's interesting is the Bible and Torah has ideas that formed the backbone of many legal systems around the world. One of these ideas is the testimony. If you were pulled as a witness in a court of law and questioned as to the existence or the character of God, what would you say?

When I was 11, just about to turn 12, my aunt's boyfriend (who was Muslim) told me that Islam has something called "the age of accountability." Basically, this is the age people are old enough to be held accountable for their own actions. I may not have grown up in the church, but I grew up with very religious/spiritual parents, and I was very determined to be perfect for God.

I could envision a forest, each tree a person. In order to be noticed by God (whom I'd already fallen in love with), I needed to be the tallest one, and I figured the way to stand out for God was to be sinless. So, I'd been reading the Bible (understanding it in my limited way as a child), and in the old testament there are a heck of a lot of rules, laws, and ordinances. It was overwhelming for me at the time.

One night, I lie in bed and prayed to God. I needed something simpler I could remember, so no matter what I faced in life, I'd know I was doing the right thing.

Now, I was 11, remember, so I still believed in a magical God, in which many adults have probably lost faith. So, I expected to be answered, but not directly of course. Perhaps, He would communicate by way of a TV program or a song that would hit the right message.

I was hoping for a paragraph or something I could memorize. Surely, it would take at least a page to summarize the Bible's laws.

In the dark of my bedroom, I heard a single solitary word:

Love.

It was like a thought, but it also felt separate from me.

So, of course, I immediately started arguing with it. No way that was it. That was too easy to remember, too simplistic, idealistic, rainbow, unicorns ...

My mother once told me if I ever heard anything pertaining to God, to check the Bible before absorbing the message. If anything conflicted with what was said in the Bible, it wasn't of God. So, I turned on the light and went to my bookshelf. Picking up my Bible, I flipped randomly through. It fell open to a page in the new testament - Matthew 22:36-40:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

I can't even explain how dumbfounded I was that night. I still argued with the word "love" for the rest of the night, tossing the idea to and fro in my mind until I fell asleep.

I have since realized this event was too coincidental to be anything but God answering my prayer, and nothing has conflicted with the idea that "love" summarizes all of God's laws. In fact, Love is the meaning of life, and as the Bible will also say, God is Love.

This is one of the reasons behind this blog. No one but God can be perfect, but we will always be loved. We are also called to love.

That moment has shaped the rest of my life, and I hope my testimony will shape yours.