Muddy Water - 31 Days of Sabbath : 1

Who is it that can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually become clear of itself.
-Tao Te Ching

My water is often muddy.

In fact, I didn’t know my water didn’t have to be muddy until recently. I just thought the hazy murk was part of living. Rest? You get that when you die.

Sabbath says differently. Sabbath says God ordained rest, blessed it. He wove it into our seasons – what is winter, if not a Sabbath? He modeled it in Genesis – even though He surely didn’t rest because he was tired.

It is part of what His plan for us. We function better with rest, with stillness, with a time to stop and remember our place and celebrate the blessings we’ve been given.

It is not given to be a burden. It is given to be sheer gift.

The practice of Shabbat, or Sabbath, is designed specifically to restore us, a gift of time in which we allow the cares and concerns of the marketplace to fall away. We set aside time to delight in being alive, to savor the gifts of creation, and to give thanks for the blessings we may have missed in our necessary preoccupation with our work. Ancient texts suggest we light candles, sing songs, pray, tell stories, worship, eat, nap, and make love. It is a day of delight, a sanctuary in time. Within this sanctuary, we make ourselves available to the insights and blessings that arise only in stillness and time.
- Wayne Muller, “Sabbath”

I pray this series, this 31 Days of Sabbath, will be a morsel of restoration, that it will whet your soul’s appetite for this God blessing that we woefully neglect.

We have lived far too long with muddy water.

Join me? Feel free to grab the button. I'll be writing about Sabbath every day in October, part of the 31 Days of Sabbath (which is part of a larger carnival hosted by The Nester; you can see all the participants here.)

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