Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Sabbath

Why We So Badly Need Sabbath Rest {and a book giveaway!}

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Rest typically comes last for me. Rest comes after the chores are done and the errands are run. Rest comes after every item on my to-do is checked off. I rest once my obligations and responsibilities are accomplished.

This approach to rest, however, is not God’s way. It’s not his way for himself, and it’s not the way he desires for us. Sure, God rested on the seventh day, after he’d created light and oceans, the stars in the sky and the land beneath our feet. But the fact is, God took that day of rest in the middle of his work. God is still working. He is still creating. He took a day of rest after six days of work, and then, he took up his work again.

Somewhere along the line, I forgot about this rhythm. I forgot that God desires that our work be punctuated with rest, even when our work is not finished.

Last week I picked up Shelly Miller’s new book Rhythms of Rest: Finding the Spirit of Sabbath in a Busy World. I’d already read her book this past summer, when I received an advance copy in order to write an endorsement. I enjoyed Rhythms of Rest immensely the first time I read it, but truth be told, the reason I picked it up again last week was that I knew I was going to write this blog post to go along with a giveaway, and I wanted to refresh my memory.

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I didn’t expect to read Rhythms of Rest cover-to-cover again. I didn’t expect it to impact me so deeply. I didn’t expect it to change my weekend…and my life.

Here’s the truth: I was all in on Sabbath rest a couple of years ago. I believed in it and was committed to it. But somehow, as weeks passed into months and months passed into years, I chipped away at the edges of my Sabbath practice until finally, there was nothing left. Without even being aware of it, my Sundays became another day of chores, errands, social media and catching up on email.

These past few months, I’ve come to understand in a new and deeper way that what God desires most is relationship with us. He doesn’t care nearly as much about what we do and what we accomplish as he does about who we are, and, more specifically, about who we are in relationship with him. God wants us to know him; it’s really as simple as that.

What I’ve come to understand – and what Shelly’s book reiterated for me — is that in order to know God in the way he desires, we need to make space and time for him. And in order to make space and time for him, we have to quiet ourselves. We have to cease our constant busyness, our constant doing and accomplishing.

Practicing Sabbath rest makes time and space for us to be in relationship with God.

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Shelly puts it like this:

“How much of our faith journey is firsthand experience and not just what we know about him? Information helps us know about God, but Sabbath allows us to encounter him.”

Sabbath allows us to encounter God.

This past Sunday I intentionally practiced Sabbath rest for first time in a long, long time. I sat with my son Noah on the back patio and talked as we ate lunch. I leisurely walked the dog around a nearby lake and admired the changing leaves and the golden sunlight. I rested in my lounge chair on my back patio, Rhythms of Rest open in my lap. I kept my computer closed and my phone on my nightstand. I didn’t do a single dish for the day until 8:30 p.m.

And you know what? It was the best day I’ve had in a long, long time. It wasn’t special in any extraordinary way. But it was beautiful. It was replenishing and restful. It was Sabbath.

 

I am delighted to be able to give away TWO copies of Shelly Miller’s delightful book Rhythms of Rest. Enter the random drawing below for a chance to win {email readers: click here and scroll to the bottom of the post to enter the drawing}:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

When You’re Driving Around with Your Tank Half-Full

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I had a revelation at the gas pump yesterday. I realized that the last several times I’ve leaned against the mini-van, nozzle gushing into the tank, I’ve clicked off the pump before it automatically clicked off itself.

I’ve driven away with half a tank, too rushed, too busy, to allow myself the time to pump a full tank of gas.

Now granted, I drive a beast of a mini-van with an enormous twenty-five gallon tank. When she’s flatlining on empty, it takes a while for that dashboard dial to crawl all the way to Full. But still…what’s it take…four, five minutes, tops? I’m so busy I can’t wait the four minutes for the ‘ol girl to fill?

In a word, no. I’m not that busy. I’m choosing to be that busy.

A few years back, my best friend Andrea and I used to talk for at least a full hour every single Friday afternoon. We did this for years. It was a standing date each week, and I looked forward to it. I brewed myself a cup of tea, arranged a handful of ginger snaps on a plate, settled into the corner of the couch with the sun on my feet. That weekly hour with Andrea sustained me.

To be fair, Andrea and I aren’t stay-at-home moms anymore. We both work now. Our boys are older. We do have more demands on our time, this is true. Yet something noticeable has changed. We talk perhaps once a month, usually when one or both of us is shuttling across town on yet another errand or another boy drop-off. I’m hardly ever sitting in an actual chair in my actual house when I talk to Andrea these days. We don’t intentionally set aside a regular time for our friendship like we used to do. Instead, we squeeze it in wherever it will fit.

What’s happened with Andrea — this squeezing our friendship into a sliver of time instead of intentionally making  a true space for it — is indicative of what’s happening in every part of my life. I’m simply squeezing it all in — here, there, wherever I can find an available slot.

Fifteen minutes of Bible study in the morning as I swallow down my English muffin; ten minutes of reading while I wait to pick the boys up from school; an email dashed off before bed; a Voxer message recorded as I walk across Walgreen’s parking lot.

Society tells us we are allowed to rest, we are allowed margin and space and time, we are allowed to re-fuel, when our work is done. When every last box on our to-do list is ticked. When every errand is run and deadline is met. When the last tee shirt is folded and in the drawer.

Yesterday, as I drove away from the gas pump with my tank half-full, I realized this is a big, fat lie.

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Society may demand this overextension of ourselves, but we don’t need to succumb to its lure.

Society may tell us we are not worthwhile or valuable or pulling our weight unless we are doing all of the things, every last one, but we don’t need to buy into that myth.

Society may tell us that this sliver-squeezing way of life is the norm, but we don’t have to sign on the dotted line.

Here’s the truth, friends (and I know you’ve heard this before, but if you’re anything like me, living the squeezy-squeeze life, you need to hear it again):

God gives us the gift of rest. It’s called Sabbath, and it’s made especially for us (and it doesn’t necessarily have to happen on Sunday, or even all at once on a single day of the week).

We can allow ourselves margin – the space to pump a full tank of gas, for heaven’s sake — because that margin is a gift made especially for us.

We can allow ourselves the space to respond to an email properly, with fully articulated sentences and thoughtfulness, because that space is a gift made especially for us.

We can allow ourselves the time to pick up the phone and settle into the sunny corner of the couch instead of a text dashed off at a red light, because that time is a gift made especially for us.

Let’s not let society tell us we don’t have the time anymore. We do have the time. God gives us time — plenty of it, in fact. We each get to decide how we’ll use it, so let’s not squander the gift made especially for us.

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When the Rules are Meant to be Broken

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Last Sunday after church, I mentioned to my husband that I needed to stop at Target to pick up a bag of chocolate chips. I wanted to make cookies for a new neighbor who had moved in three houses up the street. But I stopped mid-sentence as I explained my plans to Brad. “Oh,” I said.  “I’m not supposed to shop or work on the Sabbath. So stopping at Target and baking cookies breaks the Sabbath. Twice.”  [I’ve been practicing keeping the Sabbath for about five months now, and my “rules” include no shopping, no writing, no technology and no housework]

“That’s not breaking the Sabbath,” Brad answered as walked across the parking lot to the car. “Remember what Jesus did? He broke the Sabbath when he healed the man’s hand. He was making a point about helping and healing being more important than following all the rules. Doing something nice for someone isn’t breaking the Sabbath.”

I thought about what Brad said for a few minutes. I know it was only a bag of Tollhouse chips and a mixing bowl of dough, but it felt a little risky to me, breaking the Sabbath to bake. I’m a rule follower, you see. Rules keep me on the right path. They’re black and white. You’re never surprised if you know the rules. Rule-following might be boring, it might be routine. But scary? Unknown? Unexpected? Never. You know what’s coming when you follow the rules.

What I realized though, as I stood in the church parking lot with the keys in my hand, was that Jesus wasn’t ruled by the black-and-white. Jesus was a radical rule-breaker. He befriended the outcasts. He ate with the sinners. He healed on the Sabbath. Jesus was far less concerned about rules than he was about love. For Jesus, love decided everything. Love was the bottom line.

So I stopped at Target and bought the chocolate chips. And later that evening Noah and I walked up the street to the white bungalow with the empty boxes piled at the end of the driveway. We stood on the front porch and rang the doorbell, and when the young woman answered, we handed over a paper plate of cookies still warm from the oven. We welcomed her to the neighborhood with a plate piled high with love.

“For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law – I stopped trying to meet all its requirements – so that I might live for God.”  (Galatians 2:19)

Questions for Reflection:
Are you a rule-follower or a rule-breaker? Have you ever broken a rule – Sabbath or other – in favor of acting in loving kindness? What’s one rule you might break this week in order to help, heal or love someone else? 

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When Your Mouth Guard Reminds You of Sabbath

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After about a year of awakening every morning with a throbbing headache and my jaw clenched tight like a coiled spring, I finally made an appointment with my dentist to be fitted for an occlusal guard. This is a fancy way of saying I now wear a custom-molded piece of plastic in my mouth at night to prevent jaw clenching while I sleep.

I dreaded the fitting appointment for weeks prior. I have a teeny throw-up phobia and nightmarish memories of the gag-inducing Styrofoam fluoride treatment from my childhood, so the thought of a metal tray oozing with gunk had me Lamazing and visualizing the ocean before I’d even plunked into the dentist chair.

Miraculously, I survived the fitting procedure with nary a gag, and when I returned to the office two weeks later to pick up my custom-made guard, I discovered it wasn’t the linebacker-style apparatus I’d envisioned, but instead, a slim, dainty piece of plastic that slid almost unnoticeably over my bottom teeth.

“So, this is it?” I lisped to my dentist, running my tongue over the smooth mold. “This little piece of plastic is going to solve the whole jaw clenching headache problem?”

Apparently so. As my dentist explained, the plastic creates just enough space to keep my teeth slightly apart, thus relieving tension between my upper and lower jaw muscles.

“It’s a small amount of space,” she admitted, pinching her thumb and index finger together, “but it’s enough to make a difference.”

She was right. The morning after my first night with the occlusal guard, I lay in bed and wiggled my jaw from left to right and right to left. The movement felt fluid and supple. The stiffness was gone, the ache alleviated, the springs gently uncoiled. And my head didn’t hurt.

Last Sunday I thought about that conversation with my dentist, as I settled into my favorite spot in the sunroom with my bible, a slice of homemade orange spice bread and a cup of coffee on the table next to me.

My Sabbath Sundays aren’t always perfect. We still have basketball games and birthday parties to attend. Sometimes we argue. Occasionally I cheat on my technology fast and peek at my email. But for one hour, sometimes a little more, every Sunday morning, I rest. I carve out a bit of time, a small space in which I let myself unwind and uncoil.

When we get home from church at 10 a.m., I leave the breakfast dishes in the sink and the cereal boxes on the table and the crumbs scattered across the kitchen counters. I ignore the unmade beds and the dirty clothes on the bathroom floor. And while the kids fire up Super Mario Bros. on the Wii, I pull the fleece blanket from the basket, plump a pillow and settle into my spot facing the backyard birdfeeder. I sip my coffee and nibble the bread (which, let’s face it, is dessert masquerading as bread). I read a bit from the bible. Sometimes I scribble in my journal. But mostly, I gaze out the sunroom windows and watch the birds, grateful for the space to rest amid six harried days.

It’s a small space, that hour on Sunday mornings — just a sliver of time. You’d think it wouldn’t be enough. But it is. It’s enough space to unclench, uncoil and breathe; to rest. As my dentist would say, it’s just enough space to make a difference.

How are you finding your small space these days?

Appreciate the Blessing of Right Now

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I realize this is a cardinal…I couldn’t quite capture the goldfinch, so I figured any backyard bird was better than no bird!

“So have you seen the goldfinches?” she asks, as I hand her the plastic bucket to be filled with birdseed. Nope, I tell her, no goldfinches. Cardinals, dark-eyed juncos, chickadees, nuthatches. But no goldfinches. “I’m surprised,” she says, as I pay her for the seed. “They’re pretty common at backyard feeders this time of year. Keep your eye open for them. You’ll see them.”

Three days later, on Sunday, I sit in the sunroom. I’ve finished my Bible reading, and now, I’m simply staring out the window at the river birch tree in the backyard. And that’s when I notice the two tiny birds perched high in the branches, a hint of greenish-gold on their breasts. They’re not the brilliant yellow I expect, but the birdseed lady had warned me that they tend to brown up during the winter. I’ve spotted two goldfinches.

“How willingly we sacrifice the days of our lives to trivial distractions – silly computer games, unnecessary errands, useless worry,” writes Katrina Kenison in her new book, Magical Journey. “We get caught up in our petty concerns and miss the beauty unfolding right in front of us; rushing headlong into the next thing, we fail to appreciate the blessing of the only thing we can really claim as ours to own, the present moment.”

You know I’ve struggled with this new practice of honoring the Sabbath. I’ve argued with my kids over Monopoly, paced the house restless, haven’t quite known what to do with myself for much of the time. But this, the moment I spot the two goldfinches, is the reason why I persist.

I waste a lot of time on the computer in my everyday life. I run unnecessary errands. I fret over situations that are out of my control. But on Sundays, I break from those routines and habits. And even though my Sabbaths aren’t perfect, I always find at least a moment of rest, a moment when I put aside my petty concerns and catch the beauty unfolding, right before my eyes.

The goldfinches are there, beauty in my own backyard. I simply had to stop long enough to notice them.

What are you noticing in your stopping these days? {And have you read Katrina Kenison’s new book? It’s really quite lovely}