Remember the Sabbath!!

Someone was sitting by the side of the road when a man on horseback came racing past. The horse thundered along, tearing up the roadway. The bystander hollered, "Hey, where you going so fast?" The horseman hollered as he flew past, "I don't know. Ask the horse!"

I don't know about you, but I know that horse. The one that keeps me running from this appointment to that, from one visit to another, from preparation of sermon to another, from one meeting to another, from one staff meeting to another and the list goes on. It is so easy to race along the road of ministry and life so fast you can miss what really matters.

I was reading this week that the root word for "Sabbath" literally means "to stop!" But what happens if we are afraid to stop, because our busyness is a masking of an inner emptiness that we aren't sure we can face. But yet God says, remember to keep the Sabbath holy! It isn't an option, it is a commandment for wholeness.

Barbara Brown Taylor, the theologian says, "The simplest definition of an addiction is anything we use to fill the empty place inside of us that belongs to God alone." So the question for those of who are rushing about, "What addiction am I feeding out of my fear, and not stopping to be with God?" The surprise is that if we can really stop, then God will fill the void in us not with stuff that will not satisfy, but with the fullness of grace. But first we have to stop and get off the horse and be present with God!

In Him,
RevRichard