A Day To Contemplate

I use the above for the title to today's post because it's what I am studying as I prepare for Sunday's message. We are completing the series I've been teaching on Sabbath this Sunday.

God is amazing to me ... how He orders things and puts you in places (sometimes geographical, but sometimes emotional, and sometimes both) where you know you are in the exact place that you are because He ordered it that way. For whatever reason(s).

As I have been working through this series, I knew the time was approaching for my Mom's surgery and this trip. It eventually became obvious that this 4 part series would be split up. I'd get 3 parts done before I left and have to bring the last message (on contemplation as a characteristic of Sabbath) after I got back from the trip (this Sunday).

That bothered me a bit. Those who know me realize why this would bother me some. I like to have things finished and in order. I hate to leave things hanging.

Well, as I am looking back on the process of the last 3 weeks, it has been all about contemplation. I came to spend time with my Mom before her surgery, knowing (contemplating) the possibility that the surgery could find her entering her eternal rest. And I mean that in however full of a biblical and right meaning one could communicate it with.

Sabbath is a pre-cursor, if you will, meant to be a taste of what it will be like to spend eternity with God. Hebrews 4 talks about this Sabbath-rest for the people of God having to do with Heaven.

Since Mom's surgery went so well and the Lord has seen fit to allow her more years here with us, the relief from the possible loss and grief has given me a chance to see (contemplate) how beautiful (at least in my finite mind and perspective) God wants our lives to be and to become in this present day. This is only just a piece of what I believe the Lord wants us to see about our earthly Sabbath.

I've seen Him in so much of what has occurred over the last 3 weeks, but only because I stopped (remember ... "Sabbath" means "to cease") a few things by necessity (distance from home being one) in order to be in a different place to intentionally experience whatever it was God would have (not knowing if we would be celebrating or grieving). I hope some of this makes sense!

It's pretty powerful to me, but maybe it's just me! ;^)