The Ahhh of Shabbat

While living in Israel with my daughter and her family for a few months I experienced what God means by Shabbat being given to us as a gift. As it always begins on Friday at sundown.  Shops and businesses begin to close around 3:00 p.m. to be home and ready for Shabbat at sundown.  At least in the little town in which she lived flowers were sold on street corners for hubbies to take home to their wives, and even the smell of chicken soup can be detected wafting through the air as wives prepare the Shabbat dinner.  Any tasks that had to be taken care of were completed before sundown. The floors were mopped and the house was clean. There was nothing left that had to be done and all were present at sundown for the beginning of the Day of Rest. Whether you watched the sunset like in the photo or in your home, the Sabbath was always welcomed at sundown with a sense of quiet joy and ....well, relief, of having come to the Shabbat. 

I recall feeling a sense of peace in the day that I almost never experienced otherwise. The only thing I can compare it to is when as a kid when school gets out for the summer and you have nothing - not one thing that is required of you. No homework, no papers to write, not tests to take, no pressures of  competition or achievement. Nothing is demanded of you. As my father would say, you are free from the 'have-to's and the 'musts'. Nothing nags at you waiting to be done. It can all wait.  Ahhhh.

Imagine - I mean really imagine - that you live where the whole city around you gets quiet. No one is driving. The cars aren't honking or whoshing past one another. (Can you feel the release of just that sentence? I did.)  It's a day set apart by God and for God, which also means for those you love to share it with. Often on Saturday, the day of Shabbat, friends or family would walk over to share lunch or we would go there. Living in proximity to one another means you could amble over, no hurry, and don't have to drive. Nor would you. You might even notice things of beauty as you take a walk that you miss in the rush of other days.  Over a lunch of left over chicken sandwiches or such, you would talk about whatever was pleasant, perhaps discuss what the Torah passage for the week meant for our lives. You might even play a game of Scrabble together. Its a day to enjoy!

Here in America it is much harder to maintain that kind of arriving at a 'Shabbat Ahhh,' with nothing nagging at you that should be done when Saturday is so busy all around us.  Even if Saturday is a "day off" it's still packed full of what-to-do. Shabbat is meant to be the one day of the week set apart by God for rest - truly a day off from all the demanding 'have-to's' and the 'must's. It's meant to be a day to meet with the Lord and loved ones in an atmosphere of peace, serenity, rest and delight. I still attempt to keep the day set apart unto the Lord. No rushing through my 'devotions' in the morning, giving Him the allotted half hour or hour in the morning as I might do in a work day. But often spending time reading my Bible to enjoy my relationship with Him, to learn more about Him (selah!).

Or taking time to talk with God about the things in my life, in my mind or heart, to explore or resolve with Him some deep issues in my life which I never get to in the busyness of other days. And then there's the enjoyment of being with folks you love and who love you. This is also restorative. It's affirming. And enlightening as we share our thoughts with one another. Talking with friends about our extraordinary, amazing and wonderful God is one of the greatest joys of my life. I want to know what others know about God, what their lives in God are like.  But there are so many other ways to just enjoy being together. One Shabbat a while ago our whole family, three generations, went to the zoo. It wasn't exactly physical rest, but it was a joy just to see my 3 year old grandson Hudson's wonder as he fed a leaf to a giraffe who leaned toward him for it. It still makes me smile as I remember it, one of Shabbat's lingering joys.

We observe Shabbat, not out of any sense of compulsion, but because we love God. Shabbat is 'of' Him. It is significant enough that He made it one of only two signs of our covenant with Him (1). A day of rest is given to us by God because we are created with a need for it. It's a day when a nice long nap is legal. But also, the Lord wants to be with us. People who spend significant time with God generally carry the peace of Shabbat - His peace - with them throughout the week. I recall Larry King on his TV show interviewing Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister. Larry asked him how it was that he who probably had more stress on his shoulders than any other leader in the world, seemed so peaceful. Netanyahu replied, "I take a day off every week," meaning, of course, Shabbat, which, it is known, is partially spent with his teenage son in the Bible.

Friends of mine, believers in Yeshua though not necessarily Jewish, tell me that keeping Shabbat in some ways influences their lives for good; they can feel the difference in their peace level generally and look forward to the next Shabbat which enables us to put all the demands of the world on hold, and lets our minds and bodies recoup. Often the 'have-to's' and 'musts' take on a different sense of importance or priority when we suspend even thinking about them for a day.

Today being Shabbat, I woke up at a sleepy 9:30 a.m. with a yawning sense of wanting to share Shabbat with you, my dear readers.  - you being whosoever would read this as an invitation from God to you. This invitation is for a day off, for Shabbat, starting Friday evening to Saturday evening, by the way.  If you recall, God created days to begin with rest at sundown. And may I add, being with friends on this day is not a day for discussions of political or other controversial issues that carry negative emotion-stirring unrest. No arguments! I suggest you allow all such issues to be put in God's hands for Him to work out, a least for the day.

In the name of Yeshua, who is Lord over all, I give you permission in the Lord, to take the day off, to put aside all cares and worries, turning them over to God asking for His help and solution. Perhaps you might share a meal with folks you love, or even someone you've wanted to get together with but somehow never do. Wouldn't that be a treat?  

Oh, and one more thing. Shabbat means Saturday (though if your life makes it impossible, then make another day your Shabbat unto God). The Hebrew days of the week are known by numbers: Day 1, Day 2, etc.  Only the 7th day has a name - Shabbat.

I now wish you Shabbat Shalom, a peaceful Sabbath.  I'm going to go make pancakes, one of my Shabbat delights.

(1)  The other 'sign' of the Covenant is circumcision. It is still done in the flesh on every Hebrew/Jewish boy at 8 days old, just as God instructed Abraham.  According to the New Testament, it is now a circumcision of the heart that is required in our relationship with God. That is that we have committed ourselves to a covenant with God that we are His, even as He is our God and we will live accordingly.  As circumcision was a permanent 'sign' of covenant with God, even so Shabbat is meant to be a permanent resting in God as our way of life. 

TO TRUST OR NOT TO TRUST, THAT IS THE QUESTION

Recently the Lord spoke to me and told me to guard my peace as my greatest treasure.  This is a peace that is not circumstantial but is the peace of God which can only be had through a relationship with Yeshua (Jesus), as many of you reading this already know. And with this peace comes a kind of freedom that can be had in no other way.  If you don't know the peace or freedom I'm speaking of, please keep reading. I have hope to share with you at the end of this article.  

Well, having said that about peace, I have had quite a challenge to my own peace recently. I am sharing this rather personal story with the hope that it will be an incentive to some of you reading this as I feel the issue is an important one. And besides, I believe it's the Lord who wants me to share it for the same reason and after all, it's really His story anyway. So here goes.  

I had to make a financial decision. I felt the Lord was telling me to sell an automobile that was of fairly substantial financial value as well as having emotional value to me because of the way I had obtained the car. But at this point, because of an accident I had which upped the insurance rate on the car it was putting a monthly burden on me. I have had no debt at all for over eleven years but lately I had a few expenses that meant I now had some debt.  Selling the car and purchasing a less expensive one would enable me to get out of debt plus reduce my monthly costs. 

But every voice in my life, family and friends, whomever I spoke with told me wisdom dictated that I keep the car and just pay off my debts over time like everyone else.

What to do?  Was I really hearing from God?  Isn’t there wisdom in the advice of many counselors, as the bible says?  Could the unity in the advice of EVERYONE in my immediate set of close friends and family really be God speaking to me rather than what I thought He was saying to me?  I spent  much time wrestling with this issue and the more I wrestled, the more my stomach hurt. That peace I was talking about – gone!  Or at least seriously misplaced. What a struggle. 

A few days ago I was told by yet one more of my “advisors” that I needed some counseling to deal with my emotions because I wasn’t seeing things clearly having a fear of being in debt and that debt was what everyone deals with. Well, I had once also been in debt and I know the difference between debt and no debt. Being in debt feels like a loss of freedom to me.  As I held this before the Lord, what came to me is that God doesn’t owe anyone anything. The Bible tells us that, “The heart of the borrower is in the hand of the lender.”  That’s how it felt, as if my heart was not entirely my own. Someone else had a hold of it. Though it wasn't what might be considered by some to be a great deal of money, I was surely not at peace about owing it. The Bible also says to “Owe no man anything but to love him.”  That's the only kind of owing I prefer.  

That sounds ridiculous in this day and age, but the debt of this nation and the debt of this culture we live in today is not normal or safe. I’ve heard more than a few prophetic preachers saying “Get out of debt as soon as you can.”  Some have stated that they see a financial crises coming – even this year.  Well, I’ve heard that before but I must admit I have the same inkling. Some concern has been linked perhaps to Passover (4/3-11) or Sukkot (9/27-10/4).  I was recently called “Chicken Little” and accused of fearing that the sky would fall, when I told someone my thoughts in this regard. I'm not fearful, but I guess time will tell whether it happens or not.

After being in this conflict much too long, I came to the Lord this week and made a decision.  I would rather put my trust in Him and what I believe He was saying to me than disregard what I felt was what He was telling me to do and choose everyone else’s advice instead. After all, everyone else was in debt themselves in some way.  Perhaps my wanting so badly to be free of debt made them uncomfortable with their own debt, though if the truth be told, I bet everyone who is in debt feels the stress of it in some way.  But the reason I made that decision is that I opted to obey God. I chose to trust in God. I would go with what I believed He had been telling me even though it meant going against what people thought.  Part of the struggle, I admit, was having to disregard what people I’m close to thought of me. I decided I cared more what God thought than what they did.

Still, was it an emotionally weighted decision?  You bet. But the minute I made the choice to go with God my peace began to return.  I have the sense that my life would go differently if I chose to go the way of what now seemed worldly advice as I doubt any of them had prayed about what they were telling me, rather than go with what I felt the Lord had been telling me. Trust the Lord and He’ll give you more to trust Him with. Doubt He is trustworthy and you’ll miss the opportunities of increased blessings. The whole bible reads like that from Abraham forward: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Those are the words of King Solomon and he was supposed to be wise, right?  To this to I might add: ...and lean not on the understanding of others, even those who love you.  By not leaning on your own understanding it means not to make decisions only based on how you see things without input from or reliance upon God, but acting independently instead.  I made the decision that I would put my trust in God regardless of what the voices around me were saying.

So here’s what happened.  I put the car on Criaglist.com for a certain price. No calls. The second day I felt to reduce the price and continued to pray that God would send just the right buyer.  That evening I got a call from a gentleman asking about it.  It was pouring rain and about 9:30 at night. He wanted to come then to see it. Now?  Now.  Okay.  He liked it, but he’d have to talk to his wife about it. They both came back the next day and decided they would purchase it. 

We wound up spending a good bit of the day together and after he finally had to go off to work, the wife and I went and had lunch together. We had become immediate friends.  As it turned out, they had given – that is GIVEN – away a car of almost exactly like this one for the same amount of money to someone when God had told them to. Obviously they had been in a position to do it but still, it was quite an act of obedience. The woman to whom they had given it to said that she was feeling suicidal as she didn’t believe God even knew who she was anymore or cared what she was going through. This made such a difference in her life. It had given her hope. 

Now, here, sometime later, God had not only somewhat supernaturally provided the cash to purchase this car without financing it but here I was selling it for the same amount that they had paid for the car they had given away in obedience to the Lord. 

Add to this that the Lord had told this couple to get entirely out of debt by this winter. They had purposed to do so. They had obediently sold an even more expensive automobile. The tenant of a rental property they owned called and said he wanted to buy the house without their having advertised it. They sold their high end large home by the time winter had come, officially December 21st of this year, and had moved south to another city, to where they felt God was leading them, which happened to be my city. They had downsized to where they owed nothing including no mortgages and were now renting a nice home. The car they had purchased from me was not a frivolity but a necessity and they were able to pay cash for it. We were clear confirmation to one another that God had said the same thing to both of us - get out of debt to the best of your ability - now!

[Note: Everyone of us is in a different situation and we each need to know what God is saying specifically to us in regard to debt, or mortgages, or possibly downsizing.]

As the wife and I had lunch together, she turned out to have an interest in the Jewish roots of Christianity and the Feasts of Israel, all those kinds of things that my life is all about. So we felt that God had put us together as kindred souls. Plus they had prayed that the Lord would lead them to the right car to purchase just as I had prayed He would bring whom He wanted to have it.  This was more than a transaction for a car, the whole thing had the Lord all over it. There were so many confirmations that not only was I to have sold it but that it was this very couple who was to purchase it. The Lord had arranged the whole thing. I love when those kinds of things happen that prove how involved God is with our individual lives. My peace was entirely restored and so was my amazement once again at how “God works all things together for those who love Him.” If ever I had a set of lessons on always trusting the Lord, this was it.

So I leave you with these thoughts:  The Lord is worthy of your trust, even when logic and even your own emotions may say otherwise if that’s how you feel He’s leading you, or what you’ve heard Him say to you either directly or through His word.  Protect your God-given peace.  Value it beyond anything else, for in it is the wisdom from above – where God is, that He can see the down the road and knows what’s best for each of us.

Secondly, I share with you what I have heard from Him, to be careful what you put great value on, because many things that are considered of value today may cease to have the same value. That which is of the greatest value is peace with God.  He will take care of you and provide for you. That means put what you own in proper perspective. Let your treasure be in heaven, that is to say, value your relationship with Yeshua (Jesus) beyond whatever is in the here and now and over what people may think of you. What we have today will last only for a time, but what we have with Him lasts forever.  This life on earth will be ours for just so long but peace with God carries with it an eternal weight of glory!   

To anyone to whom the peace of God is alien to you, or if you’ve never put your trust in the Lord before, or you find that you’re not sure about where the real value is in your life – talk to Him.  He will listen.  He will hear you. And He will let you know He does.  He cares not only about you, but for you – with a loving heart beyond what you can imagine.  Tell Him the things that are on your heart.  Those things you’re afraid of anyone knowing? He already knows them. He’s just waiting for you to open up your own heart and unburden yourself to Him so He can release you from the weightiness of misplaced values and trusting in your own understanding that turned out not to be wise after all. He is the God of forgiveness and of comfort.  Put your life and all you own in His hands. So is your forever! He can take better care of both much more than you can.