Robbing Liquor Stores, and The Sabbath

13“If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot
From doing your own pleasure on My holy day,
And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable,
And honor it, desisting from your own ways,
From seeking your own pleasure
And speaking your own word,

14Then you will take delight in the LORD,
And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Isaiah 58:13-14 (NASB)

‘Have you robbed a liquor store recently? You might as well have.’ That’s the thought that went through my mind recently as my wife and I were discussing the importance of the Sabbath. Why would I say such a thing? Well…

I was telling her how much keeping the Sabbath comes up over and over again as I am reading the prophets, particularly, Isaiah and Ezekiel. The more I am exposed to God’s anger over Israel profaning the Sabbath the more uncomfortable I become with my own failure to faithfully observe it.

I finally said to my wife, “We should feel just as wrong about not observing the Sabbath as we would about robbing a liquor store.” I went on to say, ‘Stealing is so obviously wrong to us and yet the Sabbath is ranked right there with stealing in the Ten Commandments. Missing the Sabbath is no less wrong than adultery, stealing, or any of the other top ten. Yet, we don’t feel that way at all.”

That thought has seared my conscience. Now I have to figure out how to live into my shifting mindset.

Taking Rest and Holiness Seriously

God lays out two clear expectations for the Sabbath. It is to be a day of rest and it is to be kept holy. For me to get serious about this I am going to need to shift two other mindsets. One mindset I need to let go of is seeing the Sabbath as a catch-up day. It is not the day to catch up on laundry, house cleaning, abandoned projects, grocery shopping, etc. That means I need to do a little preplanning so I don’t have my back against the wall on these activities.

The other mindset I need to shift is that the Sabbath isn’t really a play day either. The passage from Isaiah at the top of this post talks about desisting from your own ways and from seeking our own pleasures. When I do have free time my mind immediately jumps to the question, “Hey, what would be fun to do today?” I don’t think God is saying that the Sabbath can’t be enjoyable or pleasant, but it really is time dedicated to God. That is the holy side of the equation. Something holy is set apart. It’s not about me or you. It’s about God.

So what do you do to honor God and keep a Sabbath? Is it a catch-up day? Do you find yourself ploughing through piles of laundry or cleaning the house? Attending to bills or mowing the lawn? How would you need to plan in order to get those things out of the way before Sunday?

Do you skip worship for something you consider a pleasure like sleeping in or catching a golf game? If so, a renewed commitment to worship would be perhaps the best place to start.

As a pastor, worship is a given and often times an afternoon nap. I am now wondering though what I can do to make sure that the day is a delight that honors God. I also need to watch myself in terms of resting. Sundays can be programmatically loaded for us, resulting in a rush instead of a rest.

I think for me it would be really good to adopt a Sunday discipline of going on a hike somewhere and having a good long meditative sit. I find that wandering in creation and thankfully absorbing sights and sounds can be amazingly restful and holy. This is particularly true when I pair that wandering with a good long sit while having a heart to heart with God, pondering our relationship, and simply listening.