In his book, Mark Labberton continues to urge the church toward a reformation in worship that takes the focus off of comfort, stability, and safety and turns its back to the wild and frightening objective of seeking God’s presence that urges us toward a heart for justice. In an interesting turn, the chapter Doing Justice Starts with Rest, Labberton he asserts that rest – in the practice of Sabbath keeping – is essential to empowering the action that he urges on the other pages. To quote, “Scripture’s call to seek justice surely involves action, considerable and costly. But a life that does justice rises out of worship, which starts with rest, is sustained by rest and returns to rest.”
Sabbath keeping is a difficult spiritual exercise in our modern go-go society. To be at rest is often seen through cynical eyes as laziness and a lack of motivation. If we’re not moving and doing, we can’t possibly be accomplishing anything. God wants us to take a different perspective; He wants us to understand that our accomplishments come from Him and that the Sabbath demonstrates our reliance upon His power. God gives us the Sabbath as a boundary, helping us to understand that we can trust in our rest when God Himself took a day off after the greatest creative moments in history. When we practice the Sabbath we finally understand that it is the Father and not us that keeps the world spinning. Worship in its purest form.
When we finally slow down and recognize the providence in which we exist, we find a release that allows our eyes to rise to the One who also rested. Unplugged, our head clears to recognize who we are in the Father’s eyes. We also see who our neighbor is, not in MySpace or WordPress or some other artificial connection, but the living, breathing humans who inhabit our world and the heart of the Father. Imagine if we were all at rest together.
LOVE | ACCEPT | FORGIVE 