Discipline of Sabbath ~ Sunday Devotion
If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord. Isaiah 58:13-14 (NIV)
These verses first came to my attention recently when my Faith and Fitness Support and Accountability Community went through Unglued Devotional together. These are the verses for Day 58. The title of that day is “Space to Exhale.” Thought for the Day: The Sabbath isn’t merely a time to be observed; it’s a time to be preserved.
The day’s lesson stuck with me. So when I sat down to revisit these verses recently, I meditated on them for a while. The theme that came to me was discipline. The Sabbath isn’t here for us to simply notice and essentially be a bystander as it goes by every week. We must do something with it. About it. We must protect it.
We’re all very familiar with the Sabbath and even the fourth commandment that tells us to keep it holy. It’s set aside for rest and for filling our cup.
Many of us don't do Sabbath well. The Sabbath is a gift, but we must slow down to receive it. Click To TweetTake a break. Set aside a day. That sounds easy. That should be something we look forward to. Day off. Vacation from life. But too many of us don’t do Sabbath well.
These verses are filled with action. Things we must do, boundaries we must set, to experience the fruit of Sabbath – finding joy in the Lord. According to the verses, we must keep the Sabbath. We’re not to go our own way, displease the Lord, or speak idle words. Those things take discipline. In a society on the move, pausing takes discipline.
Have you ever found yourself on a bike going down a steep hill? It takes work to put on the brakes. If you’re accustomed to flying through your days, your weeks, your life, it’s going to take discipline to slow down. It’s okay to ease into it. But once you practice the discipline of Sabbath you’ll see that finding your joy in the Lord is worth it.
The Sabbath is a gift, but we must slow down to receive it.
Action Step: Slow down. Set boundaries. And receive the gift that comes from the discipline of Sabbath. Practice that today.
Happy Sunday!
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