Week Three: Sabbath Smells

Sabbath Smells: Week Three

It was Labor Day weekend, so it was okay to take our Sabbath on Monday:

"Therefore, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or new moon or Sabbath day-" (Colossians 2:16)

But still, it was hard and there was a decision to make on Sunday night: Should I finish mowing before the rain, or should I spend time with family and usher in the Sabbath? It was a hard decision.  I really love the look and smell of a freshly mowed lawn...

Family or fescue?

Although I knew the right answer, it was a difficult decision to make. (In fact, it's more than a little embarrassing to admit how difficult it was!)  In the end, I enjoyed a movie and popcorn with the boys and my wife enjoyed a good visit with a dear friend. Besides, our lawn is bermuda.

And I was ready for a break.  My wife and I had worked hard tiling the backsplash in the kitchen, and before that, we had made a batch of jerky. So, that night, I went willingly to bed with the lingering bouquet of popcorn and jerky wafting through our home and coloring delicious dreams.

The dawn of our Monday Sabbath broke silently on the sleeping city as I plied the sable waters winding through the heart of town in my kayak.  The water was warm, but there were invisible rivulets of cold, evidence of a secret spring...or maybe a rain shower upstream.  The intermittent flair of lightning on the tail of the storm that had rolled through town during my redolent repose cast episodic, untimely, light in the shadowed places.

The air was blowing fresh and free, strong enough to tousle my my already disheveled morning hair. It was thrilling. I thought of Pentecost.  There were the distant tongues of fire that spoke of God's power and also the rain that spoke of His care. Everything seemed new.

At the bridge, the river became to shallow to continue.  I also knew that I should be getting back to help make final preparations for our family picnic later in the day.  So, I turned around. And as I did, the fresh wind stilled, the rich water pooled, the unpleasant aroma of stagnant water, and maybe something dead in the area, made its presence known to my nostrils.

Nonetheless, it was still a beautiful morning and I was happy as I drove back to the house having experienced the beauty and the power of the Creator.

As I walked into the kitchen, though,  my demeanor changed. The fresh and free Spirit that I had just quickened my heart to the majesty of God, stilled into something more malodorous. I noticed that the tiling tools from the interminable kitchen project had been tampered with.  (And this after explicit instructions to, "not to!")

Soon, a little person that I love dearly was the recipient of the unpleasant aroma of a lecture coming from a dead part of my heart, walled-off from the tousling winds of the Holy Spirit.  For my son, it was a heart-felt harangue.  For me, it was a glaring reminder of those shadowed places in my heart; those places that need to be burned out by God's episodic fire and made clean by God's wild wind.

I can't do it.

All I can do is get into a position where those stagnant places are exposed for what they are; dead. This has become for me an important part of my Sabbath journey-the hard part of resting-letting Christ in to expose those stinking places I have spent so many years trying covering up.

And this divine work can take place on Saturday, Sunday, or even Monday.  The day doesn't matter because the days are...

"...things which  are a mere shadow of what is to become; but the substance belongs to Christ." (Colossians 2:16-17)

May your practice of Sabbath be full of the aroma of Christ, on whatever day you choose.

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.

Photo from www.sxc.hu  706785