Adventures in Sabbath Keeping – An Introduction

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I’ve been on a journey with this whole Sabbath thing since last Spring when I was preparing a talk for Sr. High. It challenged me a good deal and I even bough a book on the topic (yet to finish). This whole notion of keeping the Sabbath holy and a need for balance in our lives has been really close to my heart over the past several months.

As someone who is always on the verge of an anxiety attack or battling back the endless demands of ministry, the idea of rest has always been a bit foreign. To me, rest meant finally collapsing on the couch with an episode of Scrubs at about 11:30PM. I’m starting to see things a little differently.

I’ve decided to chronicle my journey as I start to take it to the next level. Adventures in Sabbath Keeping will be the title I use to keep track of these thoughts. I want to use this as a chance to share a bit of what I’m learning as well as make notes of any changes in lifestyle and character that this “experiment” will have on me.

I’ve been reading a little bit on the decline of introduction free space in our culture today and the negative effects this is having. So I want this adventure to be about two things: The first, Sabbath Keeping as described in the bible as setting one 24 hour period apart from the rest of the week and keeping it holy. This will be a process of learning and understanding what the Hebrew Sabbath was all about and trying to incorporate as many elements as that as possible. The other will be about bringing a Sabbath principle of balance into my daily routine and trying to set aside time each day for an interruption free creative pause. Whether this be a time of reading, meditation, exercise, or prayer I am recognizing a need in my life for this kind of pause.

My hope is that through this I will bring a sense of Shalom (wholeness, peace) to an otherwise unbalanced, chaotic, and messy life and maybe inspire others to do the same. Our culture is just so fast paced and demanding. This is NOT something we should just submit to. Kingdom building is about bringing the culture of God to the culture of this world and demonstrating a different and better way to live. What sets us apart is not that we hide from the world but that we offer something completely counter-cultural to our world.

Thanks,

Start Wearing Purple…

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I’ll begin by saying I’m not actually wearing any.

Apparently it’s “been decided that on october 20th we will wear purple in honour of the 6 gay boys who have committed suicide recently due to homophobic abuse in their homes and schools. purple represents spirit on the lgbtq flag and that’s exactly what we’d like all of you to have with you : spirit. please wear purple on october 20th.” (taken from the facebook event)

I’m generally a fan of anything that promotes positive change in the world and certainly this qualifies. Standing up against bullying, bigotry, and homophobia is not only right and good but the kind of real love in action that this world needs. So picking a day to spread awareness is a good thing.

However,

Let’s not love simply because it’s trendy and easy. Or, you can change your clothes but that doesn’t change the world.

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for others. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees another in need, yet closes their heart against him, how does God’s love abide in them?  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3)

Love is sacrificial, it’s costly, it’s messy, it’s about action, and it’s personal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in full support of creating awareness – it’s necessary and awesome; but throwing on a purple shirt is really no more than word and talk. You can walk down the halls of your school feeling good about yourself because you were bold enough to wear purple today and hopefully through this the schools will become a safer place, but ultimately love requires you to break down the walls that separate us as people and selflessly enter into another’s life with no agenda or expectation and serve.

“And the Word (Jesus, love) became flesh and lived among us,” (John 1) ”…[and] made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant…” (Phil. 2) “…not that we have loved [him] but that he loved us,” (1 John 4) “…and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him…” (2 Cor. 5) “Therefore be imitators of God… and walk in love.” (Eph. 5)

As Christ loved, let us love. Unashamedly, indiscriminately, sacrificially; each and every day.

* I hope that I did well to indicate that I am still very much in favour of the awareness and hope that this Day of Purple is trying to spread. I pray that it does assist in making the schools safer and that it does not polarize or create hate.

** I also would like to point out that today is also my dad’s birthday.

Who Do You Think You Are Anyways?

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How do you define yourself?

This was the central question surrounding last night’s talk at Sr. High and it will also be the foundational question for the rest of the month as we tackle the topic of identity.

Identity is a big thing. Who we are, who we try to be, who we want others to think that we are; it all means something. We’re living in a unique time where through the avenues of facebook and other social media we are able to create and hide behind false identities. I call these the idealized version of you. We can choose what interests, hobbies, and photos  to show others while hiding or omitting potentially embarrassing or  secretive parts of who we are. We can essentially create the best possible version of ourselves that we want others to see. The real interesting question however is do we actually see ourselves this way?

When asked to define yourself, I would imagine it would be a difficult and complex thing to try and answer. However, when pushed I think most of us would give a fairly straightforward and concise definition. “I am a…(fill in the blank).” This definition is what I’m interested in. This definition is what the rest of this month is going to be about. We’ve all got them. One or two or three simple labels that we use to define who we are. Athlete, band geek, conservative, atheist, vegetarian, dancer, gay, christian, pacifist, alcoholic, (blank’s) girlfriend, depressed, and so on… We all do it. We all place these labels on ourselves.

We live in a world that loves labels. It’s much easier to put everything in a neat, easy to understand package than it is to actually get to know somebody. When someone is defined a certain way we are naturally prejudiced in all the stereotypes that go along with whatever label they have. Just play simple word association with any of the above mentioned labels. What do you think of when you hear that somebody is…?

The real problem however, is the way we do this to ourselves. We place labels on who we are and then live our lives within them. We box ourselves in by these labels and apply the same prejudices.

I told a story last night about how growing up in school there was a common theme on all my report cards and in all the parent teacher interviews. “Ben is smart but obviously doesn’t care about school.” Year after year this label was applied to me until I began to buy into it myself. I began to define myself as someone who was “smart but didn’t care about school.” i didn’t put the effort in, I didn’t try to change it, I just went with it. Looking back, that decision had a pretty deep affect on me in the long run. Buying into this definition of who I was has limited me from learning and branching into new things.

When we do this to ourselves, see ourselves a certain way, we put limitations on ourselves that we may not even realize. We begin to view the world through a certain lens. We put limits on our ability to grow, to change, to learn. We put limits on our own creativity.

Do you remember what it was like being a kid? What you wanted to be?
Do you remember the unlimited potential of those dreams? We didn’t worry about the external things that may stand in our way. We just dreamed.

But then life and age and other people begin to knock that dreaming out of us. It knocks the potential out of us. We begin to buy into the limitations that others put on us in their attempts to define us.

Kids have it right though. There’s this beautiful innocence in that kind of dreaming. A beautiful freedom. It’s a freedom that Jesus recognized and commented on. In Matthew 18 Jesus’ followers come to him to solve an argument that they were having in regards to their identities and how they viewed each other. They ask him, “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” His answer has profound implications for us today. Jesus calls a child over (he loves to use teaching aids) and responds, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Becoming child-like. Paul picks up this theme as well in Romans 8. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as children…”

There’s freedom in being a child. Especially in being a child of God. I love that part about fear. Adults are so full of fear. I know that sounds funny but think about it. How often do we just not try something because we are afraid of failure. We lack that unlimited potential in dreaming that children have. It’s freedom. Freedom to grow, freedom to create, freedom to learn, freedom to be loved and not held back by the limitations we put on ourselves.

The rest of this month is going to be picking up on this foundation. The ways in which we define ourselves and holding that against what it means to identify ourselves as being a child of God.

I’m excited. How about you?