The Flip Side of Sabbath

Sunday afternoons are the best.

It starts the moment I come down off the platform at the end of the sermon, sit down, turn up my hands, close my eyes and let it go.  All the work of this past week, culminating in the delivery of what I can only hope were pleasing and acceptable meditations and words, is released into the care of the Holy Spirit for Him to do with as He pleases.  Me?  I'm done. 

I'll connect with as many people as I can after the service, pray with some when needed, encourage and be encouraged, bless and be blessed.  Then it's home for lunch with Ken.  And then...the nap.

And so begins my time of spiritual restoration, from Sunday at noon until Tuesday morning, when I arrive again at the office to begin a brand new week.

Work and rest, in the rhythmic breathing of life.

A lot has been written about Sabbath lately, and a call to reclaim the essential rest God ordained for human souls.  I've needed to reclaim this for myself, unlearning patterns of drivenness and workaholism as I go.

But today my reading in Proverbs turned my thoughts to the flip side of Sabbath, and the idea that work itself is also a gift from God,

"The sluggard craves and gets nothing, 

but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied."  

Proverbs 13:4 NIV

If I think about it, there two key points in any given week for me, and they are anchored in this work/rest balance.  One is that moment of letting go just as the sermon is done.  And the other is that moment when I turn the key in my office door and open up to the start of a fresh cycle of meaningful work.

What a gift to be able to expend my energies in meaningful labour.  To press through the challenges, put my shoulder to the wheel, and diligently carry out my responsibilities.  True enough there will be bad days.  But the overwhelming experience of my work is one I find fully and abundantly satisfying.

By the time I get to the end of the service, at the end of a well-spent week, I will welcome the Sabbath.  But I find I can't have one without the other.  I won't release into my time of renewal with any joy unless I have given my all to the work.  And I can't give my all to the work, and it would soon become a joyless experience, without the release of renewal.

Sunday afternoons are the best.  But so are Tuesday mornings.  Two bests.

Grateful for the wisdom of a loving Father who knows the cravings of the human soul, and the holy ways that fully satisfy His children.