Stopping to Think Anew

I’m using this blog over the next several posts to share from Mark Buchanan’s thoughts on Sabbath in his “The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath.” This volume is not about holding congregational worship on Saturday, but about establishing a “Sabbath” principle that feeds a cycle of restoration of the believing soul.

Just as God “stopped” to rest after His six days of creation work, we too must “stop,” “be still,” “cease” from our labor, not to escape it but to express thanks to God for it – and in the process be replenished.

Not only should our labors cease, but we must stop old thinking to begin thinking anew. Built on Romans 12:2, “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” Buchanan states, “Transformation is the fruit of a changed outlook”- changed thinking producing changed living. “God is more interested in changing our thinking than in changing our circumstances.” (p.33) In the same way that a man and woman commit themselves (betrothal) to each other in marriage, the change in Sabbath thinking commits our whole self to this time whether it’s convenient or not. 

Buchanan has us consider Adam, the first male human. God saw that Adam was lonely. Adam had no one that corresponded to him - no mate. But before God created Eve, the first human female, He tasked Adam with naming all the animals of creation. Why? God wanted to drive home the point to Adam that His provision of a mate would be custom crafted to his need. In the same way, Sabbath time is God’s unique provision for the believer’s intimacy with his/her Creator.

Sabbath time is different from all other time on the clock or day on the calendar. “There is no day in creation that can banish our aloneness, even while meeting us in it, like this day. But first we change our minds.” (p.35)

Sabbath is not leisure. “Leisure is Sabbath bereft of the sacred.” (p.35) Leisure is escape. It is vacation - literally “to vacate.” You remember that vacation so intense you needed a vacation from your vacation; you were drained, exhausted, empty? Sabbath elates and fills. (p.36)

Sabbath is bound in time; “time as gift, as opportunity, as season.” (p.36)

“This [Sabbath time] is a gift from God: to experience the sacred amidst the commonplace – to taste heaven in our daily bread, a new heaven and new earth in a mouthful of wine, joy in the ache of our muscles of the sweat of our brows.” (p.37)

Sabbath Liturgy: Taking Thoughts Captive

Consider your ways. “Wise people ask, ‘Does the path I’m walking lead to a place I want to go? If I keep heading this way, will I like where I arrive?’” (p.40)

“Take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor. 10:5) Begin with David’s prayer, “Search, me O God, and see if there be any wicked way in me” (see Psalm 139:23-24). Invite the Spirit to search you and reveal one habitual thought, one attitude of your heart, that is misleading you. It may be shame, a sense that you must keep hiding, keep avoiding the light. It may be pride, or a temptation to judge others, or an insecurity that drives you into envy and rivalry. It may be just the sense of insignificance – that no one sees you, not even God. Whatever it is, ask God to change your mind. End with the rest of David’s prayer, “And lead me in the way everlasting.” (p.41)