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November 11 - November 19, 2020
Notice the irony of that command; we are to work hard to rest well.
As I’ve said, the Hebrew word Shabbat means “to stop.” But it can also be translated “to delight.” It has this dual idea of stopping and also of joying in God and our lives in his world. The Sabbath is an entire day set aside to follow God’s example, to stop and delight.
Remember that life as it comes to us is a gift. Remember to take time to delight in it as an act of grateful worship. Remember to be present to the moment and its joy. Humans are prone to amnesia, so God commands us to remember.
I mean whole-life orientation toward God.
Eugene Peterson had a name for a day off; he called it a “bastard Sabbath.”24 The illegitimate child of the seventh day and Western culture.
anything to index your heart toward grateful recognition of God’s reality and goodness.
Above all, slow down long enough to enjoy life with God, who offers everything that materialism promises but can never deliver on—namely, contentment.
True restfulness, though, is a form of awareness, a way of being in life. It is living ordinary life with a sense of ease, gratitude, appreciation, peace and prayer. We are restful when ordinary life is enough.
One of the surprising things I learned when I began to practice Sabbath is that to really enjoy the seventh day, you have to slow down the other six days.
If your story is anything like mine, Sabbath will take you a little while to master. After all, Shabbat is a verb. It’s something you do. A practice, a skill you hone. It took years of trial and error for me.
He argues atheism hasn’t replaced cultural Christianity; shopping has.
But when you run your cost-benefit analysis, don’t forget to calculate: you’re paying for that experience not only in cash but also in time.
In reality Jesus’ moral teachings aren’t arbitrary at all. They are laws, yes. But moral laws are no different from scientific laws like E = mc2 or gravity.26 They are statements about how the world actually works. And if you ignore them, not only do you rupture relationship with God, but you also go against the grain of the universe he created. Cue the splinters.
“Simplicity is an inward reality that can be seen in an outward lifestyle”38 of “choosing to leverage time, money, talents and possessions toward what matters most.”
If materialism despiritualizes us, the material world itself has the opposite effect; it respiritualizes our souls.
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
I’ve started to notice that anti-rule people are often anti-schedule people; and anti-schedule people frequently live in a way that is reactive, not proactive. As more passenger than driver, consumer than creator. Life happens to them, more than through them.
we achieve inner peace when our schedules are aligned with our values.
it’s wise to regularly deny ourselves from getting what we want, whether through a practice as intense as fasting or as minor as picking the longest checkout line. That way when somebody else denies us from getting what we want, we don’t respond with anger. We’re already acclimated. We don’t have to get our way to be happy.
When asked about the competition from Amazon Prime and other up-and-coming streaming services, Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, shrugged. He said their biggest competition is sleep.
Multitasking is just sleight of hand for switching back and forth between a lot of different tasks so I can do them all poorly instead of doing one well.
Persons who meditate become people of substance who have thought things out and have deep convictions, who can explain difficult concepts in simple language, and who have good reasons behind everything they do.
“Every now is an eternity if it is full of God.”
