The Days in Between

This day in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday...  I always think of the disciples, devastated and grieving, beyond heartbroken.

They didn't know that it had been a "good" Friday...the beginning of freedom from the chains of sin.  It just looked like the end of all their hopes and dreams.  They didn't know that in one more day their world would be turned completely right side up, that they would burst with a joy that could not be contained, that all of history would shift on its axis, that a revolution would be launched.

There's been a theme running through my posts of late about the waiting time between the promise and the fulfilment.

It's the not knowing that can become our undoing.  Not knowing when/if the waiting will ever end.

The disciples didn't know what we know...

The ability to hold on comes from remembering what we know.

While you wait...for the long hard things...when your faith is absolutely stretched...peer into the empty tomb.  Gaze at the neatly folded cloth that wrapped His head.  Breathe deeply of the sweet scents that anointed Him.  His is risen!!  Death did not and cannot prevail.  Darkness has never and will never overcome Light.

Remember the empty tomb!

The Spirit of God,

who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.

And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead,

he will give life to your mortal bodies

by this same Spirit living within you.

Romans 8:11

A Day of Rest

My Opa was a dairy farmer who never made hay on Sundays.  Even when the forecast called for rain for the rest of the week.  He took some ribbing for it, but every year he got his hay done.  I love that he had that kind of faith.

That being said, I don't for a minute think that God is waiting to catch us "breaking the Sabbath day".  Which day of the week would that be anyway?  Rather, I see His instruction to take a day of rest as an expression of His loving care for us.  It is good for us, spirit and soul and body, to take a day of rest.

"You must keep the Sabbath day, for it is a holy day for you... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day he stopped working and was refreshed."

At this point, I must confess that I've definitely indulged in a little self-pity that there's no such thing as a day of rest for a mom!  Also, Sundays can be a very busy day around here.  So what does it look like to take a day of rest?  I'm pretty sure it's something different for everyone.

The New Covenant says, "For all who have entered into God's rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world."  There are many, many layers of meaning in this verse.  I know that for me to take a 'day of rest' from my labors means to take a break from The List.

There's a to-do list in my life that never ends and I get great satisfaction from crossing things off of it.  However, that list that never ends can sap my strength and be a vicious task master.  For me it is an act of faith to take a day off from The List.  In taking one day every week wherein I don't let myself do anything on the list, I'm saying that I trust Him to provide the energy and the time I need to get the important stuff done if I honor His instruction to take a day to be refreshed.  Part of the refreshment definitely comes from consciously using that time to connect with the heart of the Father.

Trust is a form of worship.  That trust is what makes this day of rest holy--whether the time is spent "laboring" in hospitality or reading or enjoying a day outdoors.

What does it mean or would it mean for you to take a day of rest from your labors?

*Opa is Dutch for Grandfather
Genesis 31:14, 17; Hebrews 4:10