Greetings to you in Jesus' name. I had an amazing weekend. It was my first weekend away from Hermantown since I moved up here. I made it down to Kansas to one of my adopted families house. One of my best friends in college, his parents live down in Chenney, Kansas. They invited me down and I was able to surprise them. It was a fun weekend of hanging out with them, playing games, and shooting guns. Then on my way home from there, I was able to meet my new niece. JoAnna and Steven had a perfect, beautiful little girl and named her Ava Grace. I got to hold her and spend some time with them and I must say I am one proud uncle. I love my nephews and am glad to have boys to wrestle with and watch them play football, but I can already tell it is going to be pretty special to have a little girl around too.
I am working my way through the Large Catechism again and truly appreciate how Luther thought of everything as he wrote these amazing works. On his explanation to the third commandment of "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy", he covers what most Americans struggle with today. I was just discussing the topic of "Sabbath living" with a member last week, and we were questioning working on Sunday. I grew up with Sunday being Dad's only day to mow and get stuff done around the house, so I have never thought twice about doing manual labor on Sunday after getting home from church. However, then comes the fine line of doing labor around the house and working as in your job. I have to admit, there have been many times I find myself doing work stuff on Sunday afternoon to get ready for a Sunday evening Bible or such. So how do we accomplish a "Sabbath living" life-style in a crazy, busy world. Well for the full answer, dust off your Book of Concord and read the two pages of Luther's Large Catechism. However, since we are talking about a crazy busy life, I will try to paraphrase here as well. Sabbath living is not about doing absolutely nothing on Sunday afternoon, and we know this because this is what the Pharisees tried to accuse Jesus of. It is not about doing absolutely nothing, but rather setting time aside to rest and be reminded even God rested on the seventh day. It is about setting aside time for your relationship with Him (church, daily devotions, prayer time, etc.) and it is about setting aside time to refresh and rest yourself (taking a day off from your job, spending quality time with family, refreshing your own energy through rest or relaxing hobby time, etc.) For me, this includes my daily devotions, my daily prayers, my evening wind down period every night, as well as wood working, hunting, fishing, etc. For you, it will look different because you probably have a family, a house to do chores, and such. The point is to make sure you don't fill up every second of your life so that you have no time left for God, your own rest, and your family. I heard a quote the other day from another pastor that I really liked. It goes like this: "Work from your rest rather than rest from your work." Rest is a gift, use it to re-energize yourself so that you are ready to do the work God has given you to do. Use that rest to strengthen your relationship with God and with those around you. So we a Sabbath people can still accomplish this life-style even in the midst of EVERYTHING that is constantly demanding our time and efforts. Even Luther almost 500 years ago knew this would be such a problem, he included it in his writings. Thanks be to God who wants us to be rested people and gives us the gift of the Sabbath.
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