my sabbath

The past week I've been working hard trying to get last minute details for my trip to Europe ironed out before it is in fact the last minute. I accomplished a fair bit, yet in the process I've come to realize there will always be another travel book to read, or a country featured in the newspaper or another person whose traveled there recently. To be honest, my head is nearly full and I'd rather not be sick of Europe (not that this is likely to happen) before I get there. With this in mind I decided I was in much need of a couple days "off" from planning.
Yesterday and today I did no planning, made no lists or phone calls, and it felt great. As a result I am now really looking forward to getting back to work on things tomorrow after work.

This is not a new principle for me, so the outcome is not uncommon to me, but rather a good reminder. In college one of the women I lived with my first year made a point of not doing homework on Sundays. I remember thinking... "that's great for you but..." and then I'd come up with a list of reasons why it would never work for me. Then I stopped and thought about it. Well actually it was more so that I hit the "6 week mark" and realized I had to change some things in my life if I wanted to do more than survive. I liked the princple of taking one day off. Sunday happened to work well, and seemed natural.

And so I began to explore what it means to have a sabbath. There are many notions of what God's intentions were in instructing his people observe a sabbath, and I will not try to explain or explore them now. But one thing I've decided is that I don't know if anyone in the North American culture will ever really understand the true beauty behind it. For me I've only just begun, but I intend to carry on. Taking a day off has been far from a walk in the park for me. It often meant that I would have to look at my schedule and study for that exam I had Monday morning before Sunday night. Which often meant I spent Saturday evening working. But Sunday soon came to be my favourite day of the week. I would sit around as long as possible, prolonging Sunday lunch, which is quite possibly my favourite meal of the week, chatting with friends and never once did that stressful nagging feeling creep up from the pit of my stomach to remind me there was work to be done. Sunday became my rest, my time to catch my breath. It also required that I had to have faith that my work would get done throughout the rest of the week, and without fail it always did.

I've come to conclude that the sabbath for me is about having faith. Faith that God will give me what I need to accomplish what I need. Another great outcome was that by Monday morning I always felt excited to get back to work, refreshed and ready. And so my sabbath this week has served me well and tomorrow I'll plan some more, but for tonight I'll rest knowing that I need not worry but trust.