Tag Archives: stop

Here’s to the New (Things)…

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TheBean & I get to spend the first couple of days of what would normally be the “First Work Week of 2021” at one of our favorite places in the whole world: a small cabin on the shores of Lake Tahoe. It’s (thankfully) on the Nevada side of the lake, albeit just a couple of miles from South Lake (& Califor-kneee-yaaaah). We’ve been very fortunate to be able to come to this place over the years for several reasons:

  • It’s Lake Tahoe. C’mon man. This has got to be one of the most beautiful places in the whole world. I’ve not been EVERYWHERE, but over the years I have been places. Hawaii (Kauai & Maui). Italy. Switzerland. Germany. France. England. Poland. Mexico. Cana-dia. Been very blessed to see & stay in many beautiful locations, & hands-down, Lake Tahoe is the best.
  • It’s close. We can get from our front door to the cabin’s front door in < 60 minutes. Fully unloaded & ready to “BE” in < 90. It’s good.
  • It’s a rental. No day-to-day cost for maintenance & upkeep, let alone taxes. The cost of real estate in Reno/Sparks has gone through the roof, & Lake Tahoe is waaaaay beyond that. Coming to these cabins over the years has been a (relatively) simple & inexpensive way to do mini-vacations, with just the two of us & with all the kids/grandkids.
  • Off-season discount.  Coming to the cabins has been doable over the years because of an ‘off-season’ (Labor Day to Memorial Day) discount offered to clergy. It’s made places accessible that would have been WAAAY beyond the norm.

They say that all good things must come to an end. (Who is ‘they’? I’m immediately flashing back to my youth. I can still hear “Dandy” Don Meredith singing, 3-sheets to the wind, in the Monday Night Football booth, Turn out the lights/the party’s over/They say that all/good things must end…) We just discovered when we were attempting to sign up for our post-Labor Day cabin time that they off-season discount is one of the casualties of 2020 & will not be available going forward into 2021 & beyond. Bummer.

So… we’re taking a little extra time to soak in the time we have together here. To enjoy the beauty of the waves crashing & the wind howling in anticipation of the afternoon snow flurries. This has been a good place for us to BE. To learn (in the middle stage of life) what it means to recreate. To reconnect with each other. To stop. To rest. To celebrate. To reflect.

And still. I find myself wondering… Looking forward with anticipation… Here’s why:

There are a couple of points of inspiration, words of encouragement (WOE’s) really, that we’ve gotten in the last 3 months(& BOY have we needed those.) These 2 separate but related WOE’s state:

  1. Revelation 21:5 – Jesus is making ALL THINGS new. This is the theme that our mother-church organization is declaring for 2021, & I am holding on to it. Coming out of 2020, there are many things on my list that I would LOVE for Him to make new… but it’s not like I just submit a ‘wish-list’ to God & expect Him to cater to my wants & whims… His ways are much better & far more creative than my ways, which leads me to believe that the promise to make all things new is one that extends to me & theBean’s getaways. To our vacation, relaxation, reconnection, recharging, & reflection times. And that Jesus has something(s) in mind that will be New for us in these areas too. Even if we don’t see them yet.
  2. Completely separate from (but Oh So Related to) that WOE was a WOE that I received in my early morning coffee & Bible reading/pondering time. I was making my way through the Book of Isaiah (he’s a major prophet with most likely the greatest number of prophetic & insightful promises about the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One’s coming.) Anyways, it’s Isaiah 43:16-21 – God is doing a NEW thing. “NEW” here refers to 2 things: NEW as in unused, untouched, completely restored & whole kind of way; & NEW as in unprecedented, not seen before, groundbreaking. BOTH kinds of NEW spoken of here are encouraging, but the 2nd, the ‘unprecedented’ new… that requires just storing these things in your heart, watching & waiting & looking to SEE what God is up to. Because if it is unprecedented in our experience, we wouldn’t be able to anticipate it coming anyway.

Here’s to 2021. To the new. To the restored. To the unprecedented. To God’s blessings, old & new. To faithfulness, consistency, & connection with others. To living for more than just ME & MINE, & to being a tangible blessing in as many ways as possible to those that God chooses to bring into our path.

Do I ever REALLY stop? & other musings…

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Just looked at the calendar. Five Mondays from today, theBean & I will be on our first day of sabbatical. I’m trying to prepare for this time away, with the purpose of being as intentional as possible about what we’re doing. So, I’m revisiting some studies that I began about 10 years ago on the Sabbath & Sabbath rest. I’ll be blogging some of my thoughts, discoveries, wonderings, & questions here over the next several weeks…(If you’re interested, you can read more about WHY we’re taking a sabbatical HERE)

 

A couple of my favorite ways to study something in the Scriptures are to

  1. find the word in the original language, along with a working definition of the word;
  2. do a word-search & find the first place in the Bible the word is found…
  3. ‘popcorn’ around to other places the word is found, referenced, discussed, etc…

I looked up Sabbath & found the first time the word itself is used is in Exodus 16:23  & it shows up quite a few more times, most notably in Exodus 20:8 – the place in Scripture where God gives Moses the commandments (of the most famous “10 commandments,” the command to remember the Sabbath & keep it holy is #4. But I digress. Fun rabbit trail though.) The definition of Sabbath is “to stop; rest; come to rest; cease.” The more I dug, I discovered that though the word first showed up in Exodus, the first time the concept or practice of Sabbath appears in the Bible is in Genesis 2:1-3 as a part of the creation narrative. It says:

Heaven & Earth were finished, down to the last detail. By the seventh day God had finished His work. On the seventh day He rested from all His work. God blessed the seventh day. He made it a Holy Day, because on that day He rested from His work, all the creating God had done. The Message

Think about it. The final ‘act’ of creation was God creating Sabbath, Holy Time –This was so important that He built it into the fabric of creation by working six days, then on the seventh day, He STOPPED. And then He RESTED.

The more I roll this around in my head, the more I see how tied together the two are: you cannot rest until you stop. So I think about what it takes to stop, to REALLY stop. And I think about myself & my own life patterns & pace of life. I reflect on our cultural norms, behaviors & attitudes that are normal, at least until they are held up to the mirror of God’s Word. And I ask myself, “Do you ever really stop? Do WE?”

We live in a 24/7 city – in a country that celebrates busyness, activity, & multi-tasking. We rarely think about let alone embrace the fact that we have limits – on our time, our physical/mental/emotional capacity, & on what we can do & do well. We often push ourselves & our schedules to the limit, cramming as much activity into our days & weeks as possible. We usually don’t get enough sleep & survive/re-engage with life because of coffee/energy drinks. (An interesting fact – in 2006 when I began my studies on Sabbath, I researched the caffeine, how much was consumed in the US, & how much money was spent on it. Here’s what I found: In 2006, more than $12 Billion was spent on coffee, & another $1.1 Billion was spent on energy drinks, most of which were consumed by people in the 18-25 year old range. Fast forward to 2014 – close to $40 Billion was spent on coffee last year & a staggering $13.5 Billion was spent on energy drinks, a figure which is estimated to rise to at last $21.5 Billion by the year 2017. And the reason more than 60% said they drank coffee/energy drinks? In essence it was, “I need it to get going & keep going. Can’t do what I do without it.”)

When we have time off, we use it to get everything done that we couldn’t finish during the work week, &/or we pack our free time with all sorts of activities. Technology doesn’t help us out here – the modern conveniences of ‘staying connected’ through our smart-phones, computers, omni-present wifi, mp3 players keeps a constant barrage of stimulation & noise bouncing around our brains.

No wonder silence seems strange.

 

Do I ever REALLY stop? When was the last time I took a day, set apart as Holy Time, & didn’t work… didn’t get preoccupied/distracted with something… just intentionally set myself up to BE?

The defense mechanisms kick in quickly. Countless reasons for WHY I do what I do, & WHY taking much time (let alone a day) is just about impossible with all the things that fill my busy schedule come to mind.

And then I think about what I read last week from Matthew 11:25-30, especially the part about finding God’s rhythms of grace for life… & I contrast that to the driven, life-sucking pace & practices that lurk around me… And I want that rhythm, God’s rhythm for me. And so I invite Him in to the mess of me… & I trust He will FINISH what He starts.