Think on These Things

How's the meditation going? For me, it feels like the phrase "God is for us" is exactly what my heart needs to hear.

I came across this tool for meditation: questions that can be asked about the verses that you are meditating on to help direct your thinking.

Philippians 4:8 Questions

What is true about this, or what truth does it exemplify?
What is honorable about this?
What is right about this?
What is pure about this, or how does it exemplify purity?
What is lovely about this?
What is admirable, commendable, or reputation-strengthening about this?
What is excellent about this (i.e. excels others of this kind)?
What is praiseworthy about this?

source: http://biblicalspirituality.org/sbts.html

Memorizing and Meditating on Scripture

Here it is March and time to add a new discipline: memorizing and meditating on Scripture. Every week we will have a couple verses to work on. This week it's Romans 8:31-32: "What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

The author of Psalm 119 has some interesting things to say about meditation. He says, "Oh how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me." If you think about "enemies" as those things that attack our souls, they could include fear, anger, depression, greed, lust, pride and a bunch of other things. What are your enemies that meditation could give you wisdom over?

Something to think and pray about this week

What is it in us that takes a simple notion like "making space for God", and surrounds it with laws? In Jesus' lifetime, keeping the Sabbath had become a major worry. All work was forbidden, and work was classified under thirty-nine different headings. Time and again, Jesus ran into trouble with the scribes and Pharisees over keeping the sabbath. For the Rabbis this was a matter of deadly sin, and of life and death. When Jesus and his disciples plucked and ate ears of corn on the Sabbath as they wandered through the cornfields, the rabbis saw them as guilty of four different offences: reaping, winnowing, threshing and preparing a meal. All of these were forbidden on the sabbath. When the Pharisees threw this accusation at Jesus, he came back with a memorable phrase, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.' (Mark 2:27) Human beings were there before any regulations or laws, and human need overrides any law. The Sabbath meets a human need, for space and a break from work.

[source: http://sacredspace.ie]

How Was Sabbath?

OK everyone, time to hear from you. How has your sabbath experience been? What has been challenging? What has been encouraging? Has God taught you anything? Please share your experiences in the comment section. I look forward to hearing from you on the blog!

Reflection Questions

1. What difficulties or compulsions surround your resting on the sabbath?
2. How does taking a sabbath enhance your enjoyment and worship of God?
3. What makes a sabbath day nourishing and replenishing to you?
4. What happens to you when you go without regular rhythms that allow you to rest in God?

[source: Spiritual Disciplines Handbook]

Time To Stop

by Wayne Muller

"Sabbath is not dependent upon our readiness to stop. We do not stop when we are finished. We do not stop when we complete our phone calls, finish our project, get through this stack of messages, or get out this report that is due tomorrow. We stop because it is time to stop."

Sabbath

by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT READS: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work" (Exodus 20:8-10). The Jewish understanding of sabbath embraced a special twenty-four hour rest time that was different from every other day. Other days of the week were given over to work, but the sabbath reminded people that they were finite. They could not constantly be on the go. There were limits to their energy. And to honor these limitations, was to honor the infinite God, who himself worked and rested.
Jewish sabbath began in the evening when the family set aside all the to-dos of the work week. As the lamps were lit, everyone settled into the evening calm of Shabbat. Candles, prayers, blessings, food, the empty chair at the table - it all represented delight and refreshment in the presence of God and each other. When bedtime came, the family rested in God's covenant protection. They woke on sabbath morning to a world they didn't make and a friendship with God they didn't earn. Over time, this one intentional day for delight and refreshment turned into a sobering legalistic exercise. Enjoying God and others was replaced by scrupulously keeping sabbath rules. The day God had given as a respite from work became simply another kind of work.
Jesus took specific aim at this misunderstanding of the sabbath. As Lord of the sabbath (see Matthew 12:1-14; Luke 6:1-10), he freely interpreted the sabbath command, claiming that God gave it to people as a restorative and recuperative gift. God did not intend for life to be all effort, so he punctuated each week with twenty-four hours of sabbath rest, during which people could remember what life is about and who it is for.
Sadly, everything about us works against slowing down. Our compulsion to produce and not waste time invades the space God gave for us to rest. Children's athletics, national sporting events, round-the-clock accessibility to work, e-mail and stores also fill up the sabbath day, so we never stop. When you get indignant over how seemingly incompatible sabbath is with the tiring and relentless demands already facing you, consider what your tiredness means. Animals don't think about how tired they are. And they don't have a sabbath they set aside for rest. It's humans who recognize the difference between work and rest. The fact that we make distinctions between being tired and rested is an indication that we need to do both. Made in the image of God, we are like God, who on the seventh day "rested" from all his labor.
Sabbath is God's way of saying, "Stop. Notice your limits. Don't burn out." It is a day he gives us to remember who and what work is for as well as what matters most. Sunday generously hands us hours to look into the eyes of those we love. We have time for loving and being loved. Rhythmically, the sabbath reminds us that we belong to the worldwide family of God. We are citizens of another kingdom - a kingdom not ruled by the clock and the tyranny of the urgent. God's sabbath reality calls us to trust that the Creator can manage all that concerns us in this world as we settle into his rest.

(source: Spiritual Disciplines Handbook)