THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES

"And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done" Genesis 2:2
"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him" Psalm 37;10
"Be still, and know that I am God.I will be exalted among the nations,I will be exalted in the earth!" Psalm 46:10
"For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel,"In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." Isaiah 30:15

Have you ever gone on a vacation and filled it with so much activity that you needed a vacation after your vacation? If you thought you were stressed out and too busy in your life before you went on vacation, your vacation was busier and more stress filled than your normal life. That has been my normal experience on vacations. When I go away I usually fill my time from morning to night with surfing, hiking, and sightseeing. Why do we do this to ourselves? I have learned that fundamentally it is because we do not understand the Lord's gift and purpose of Sabbath rest. This past couple of weeks I decided to do something different, slow down! I intentionally decided to stop, rest, be still, be quiet, pray, read, fast, and actually end my trip closer to God. It worked and my life will never be the same.

I am learning that God does not want to add more burdens to our lives and increase our busyness. Our wonderful God desires to diminish our burdens and lighten our loads through the ordering our lives in ways where we stop and pause and rest in order to know Him and keep Him at the center of our lives.

When we stop and pause we imitate our Maker. God Himself created the world in six days and stopped on the seventh. That is where we get the word "Sabbath", which in Hebrew means to cease or stop working. Whether we honor one day a week as a sabbath or take "sabbath" seasons, or take daily sabbath moments, we imitate God when we stop and rest.

This week I would like to share some thoughts about taking "sabbath moments" during our normal day and next week I will discuss taking a "sabbath day" or "sabbath season".

When I was on the island of Sumatra in the city of Padang last year I observed every day the practices of the Muslim people. Five times a day the Mullah would blare his call to prayer and then prayer over the loudspeaker throughout the city (6 and 9 am and 12,3, and 6 pm). At that moment devout Muslims would stop their activity, face towards the Muslim holy city, Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and begin to go through an intricate prayer ritual to their God Allah. I was intrigued and convicted that all of these people throughout the Muslim world had incorporated into their lives a rhythm of stopping throughout the day to worship and remember their God. Yet how sad that most Muslims do this out of duty and obligation to stay in favor and submission to the will of Allah.

I thought about us busy American Christians. In the guise of grace and freedom we pride ourselves from not being bound to laws, obligations, and rituals. But, look at us. Is our freedom leading to us being close with God? Has it caused us to be in love with God? With His people? Do we love the lost? Are we full of mercy , grace, and compassion? I was very convicted that in our supposed freedom many of us do not seem to feel very free to attend church once a week or to have daily times of prayer and bible reading.

I think our busyness is the death of our soul, it sure was for me. Many of us are overscheduled, addicted to hurry, frantic, distracted, preoccupied, fatigued, and starved for peace. Cramming as much as possible into our IPhones, Blackberries, IPads, day planners, and to do lists, we fill our lives with constant activity every moment until we collapse in bed or on the couch in front of the television. Yet how much really changes in our lives? If we aren't busy we feel guilty and we certainly could not imagine doing nothing.

I want to challenge you to reset your life toward a new destination-God, and for your journey to become a whole new way of living in this busy world. I call it, "the pause that refreshes". Did you know that God wants us to have an intimate communion with Him? John Owen, the great Puritan, spoke of the importance of ordering our lives to go deeper in our communion with Jesus Christ."Christ is our best friend and ere long will be our only friend. I pray God with all my heart that I may be weary of everything else but conversation and communion with Him." Later on Owen wrote that the revelation of God and His great love “deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them.” If you had a friend in New York, but you never thought about this friend and never communicated with him, that friendship would fade and not have much significance in your life. Friendship maintained and built always requires great effort. For the friendship to affect you, you must think often about this friend and what he means to you and spend time with him. That is why John Owen suggests that “Friendship with God is most maintained and kept up by visits”. Oh how we need regular visits with God to stoke the fires of our love!

I have always been disciplined about morning devotions including bible reading, meditation, and prayer. But what would usually happen is that as my day went on I easily forgot about or was unaware of the presence of God. By lunch time I could be grumpy and short with others. By late afternoon God's presence was gone from my consciousness. By dinner time He was long gone. Yet this Bill was the person that I afflicted upon my family and others every day!Where did Bill's Christianity go by bed time? I wondered myself sometimes. I ordered my life to get filled up in the morning for the day but as the day went by I had leaked and by bedtime I was empty! The problem was that the way I approach communion with God was to begin my day to get something from God that I expected to last the day. It didn't!

Now I have begun to learn what communion and intimacy with God really means. I know that what I really need is not to spend time with God in order to get something from Him (Though you always do as a result), I need to be with God in order to be close with Him and to enjoy His fellowship and presence. Augustine said, "Oh Lord You have made us for Yourself and our hearts find no rest except in You."

Do you remember the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42?
"Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."

Many pastors I have heard really let Martha off the hook and even commend her busyness.The text says that Martha was distracted with much serving. Sounds allot like us! But Jesus did not commend her! He said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.". I think most of us have little problem with a "Martha like" busyness in our lives. Where we have difficulty is in choosing the "better portion" and taking appropriate times to sit at Jesus feet like Mary. I would like to suggest that only when we learn to sit at Jesus feet will we be able to live out a centered and healthy busyness to our lives.

How do we busy American Christians realistically become more like Mary and less than Martha? David practiced set times of prayer seven times a day (Psalm 119:164). Daniel prayed three times a day( Daniel 6:10). Devout Jews in the time of Jesus prayed two to three times a day. Jesus Himself probably followed the Jews custom. He also intentionally and frequently went away from His disciples and the needy crowds in order to pray and commune with the Father. After the resurrection of Jesus, His disciples continued to pray at certain hours of the day( Acts 3:1;10:9)

It seems to me that all of these people realized that stopping to commune with the Lord and become aware of His presence was very important for their lives. I believe that it is the key to creating a habitual, continual, and welcome awareness and easy familiarity with the presence of God throughout the day. in short, we can learn as Brother Lawrence used to say, "to practice the presence of God".

When we begin to set aside small moments of time throughout our day for morning, midday, and evening prayer it infuses into all my daily activities and my busy schedule my life a deeper sense of God. Soon I discover that my work really is a sacred place. My home becomes a sacred place. Driving on the freeway is a sacred place. The beach is a sacred place. All the time and every activity and every moment wherever I am God is with me.

How do we begin to incorporate this into our lives? I will address that next time.

Pastor Bill