Tag Archives: rest

A God-Inspired Sabbath

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A God-Inspired Sabbath

There will be times in our lives where God leads us into a period of rest or a “Sabbath”. It may be taking a break from work or something that you do, a hobby, serving, or even a temporary break from a friendship or relationship. These times of rest are there to refresh and replenish you. They might also be there to create margin because God may foresee things coming up that you are getting ready to encounter. You might need extra time and energy in order to face them.

My recent God-inspired Sabbath

Over the last several months I’ve missed my writing, and I miss (and have sometimes felt a little guilt-ridden) about the consistency of new content on my site. Consistency, loyalty, and faithfulness are character traits that I have always valued and strived to achieve and demonstrate. Therefore, it’s been extremely difficult for me to feel like I’m not successfully living up to those traits in my writing over the past year.

Although, I do feel like God, in his kindness and divine foreknowledge kind of gave me a “heads up” that I was going to need to take a bit of a break, a “sabbatical” of sorts, from writing new content and spend some time recycling, updating, and reposting some of the older content on my site. I expected the break to only last for a few months, however, it ended up taking place over the entire year.

Seventh Year Sabbath from my writing

I decided to take a break from writing for my blog (or at least from writing a new post every week). It was a bit of a hard decision. I felt some guilt about it, like I was letting people down or letting God down. When I decided it just felt like I needed some rest, some time off because I couldn’t keep up the way and the pace that I wanted and had been doing. The word “sabbatical” came to mind which then caused me to think of “Sabbath” (aka…rest).

Something made me take a look at how long I had been writing on my blog, and coincidentally, I was just entering my seventh year. God reminded me of the times in scripture where he asked his people to let certain things have their “Sabbath” on the seventh year. He instructed them to let the land rest and not to plant new crops on the seventh year.

Seventh Year Sabbath in scripture

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Jesus is the Cornerstone: What does this mean for us?

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Jesus is the Cornerstone: What does this mean for us?

“Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.” Ephesians 2:20 (NLT)

My church small group is currently reading through and studying the book of Ephesians. When reading over Ephesians 2 recently, a section near the end stood out to me—a part describing Jesus as the cornerstone. I love analogies, so I decided to study this a little more.

The analogy given in the passage describes the followers of Jesus as a house, a temple where God now lives by his Holy Spirit (see also 1 Corinthians 3:16, 1 Corinthians 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16, Romans 8:9). Paul describes us as being built on a foundation of those who went before us, the apostles and prophets, and Jesus is the cornerstone.

I learned that a cornerstone, sometimes called a foundation stone, is the first stone laid for a structure. I read that this was the most important part of this ancient construction method. A cornerstone was generally a very large and solid stone, typically larger and sturdier than all other stones. This stone took the most care and precision to lay because of its importance to all of the other stones and to the structure as a whole.

The cornerstone is put into place with all of the other stones then laid in reference to that stone. It sets the direction and the orientation of the entire structure. The cornerstone ensures proper alignment when all of the other stones line up with it. A cornerstone is a rock upon which the weight of the entire structure rests.

There are so many parallels that can be seen between a cornerstone and Jesus.

Parallels between a cornerstone and Jesus

Cornerstone

  • First stone laid
  • Most important part in the construction of the structure
  • A very large, reliable, and sturdy stone
  • Sets the foundation
  • Sets the direction and standard of the structure
  • Ensures proper alignment
  • Provides stability for the structure
  • The rock on which the structure and weight rests
  • Joins the structure, all the stones, together

Jesus

What being our cornerstone means to us…

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Having Trouble Getting to Sleep?

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Having trouble getting to sleep? Try using these bible verses to help...Having Trouble Getting to Sleep?

Sleep is vital for life.  In fact, I happen to think that sleep is a necessity to help us be happy, healthy, and prosperous!  Obviously, sleep can help us to be happy.  You can actually see the effects more in reverse—when you don’t get sleep you get unhappy!  A sleep deficit can have a definite negative impact on our emotions.

We also need sleep to keep us healthy.  Our bodies restore and repair at night as we’re sleeping.  A lack of sleep can weaken our immune system and increase our chances of getting sick.  Lastly, a lack of sleep can hurt our finances too.  Our prosperity can be influenced by the state of our emotional well-being and our health.  If our happiness and our health are suffering, it can lead to a loss of prosperity.  If we’re not happy and healthy, we’re less creative, miss work, have poor decision-making abilities, and thus make less money.  In fact, it can actually cost us money and time if we have health and/or emotional problems.

Sleep is a necessity to help us be Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous!

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Sleepy momma

When my daughter was a baby she refused to go to sleep.  She fought sleep like crazy.  This actually lasted until she was a toddler.  At one point we even had to put duct tape on her light switches so she would quit getting up in the middle of the night to turn the light on and play!  This didn’t work either…she then just got up and played in the dark. 🙁 So her refusal to sleep on top of a bit of colic as a baby made us made pretty sleep deprived.  I was one worn out momma!  Saying I was sleep-deprived was an understatement.  That’s when I decided to try to find a scripture to pray and confess over her (and me) to help us go to sleep and get a good night’s rest.

I’ve since found these verses and others I’ve discovered to be extremely useful even after my daughter’s sleep boycott years.  Sometimes getting enough sleep and/or going to sleep is an ongoing battle for me, and boy does it show!  I’m super cranky when I’m tired.

I’ve had to lean on and confess these verses over myself on a number of occasions…

  • Nights where I didn’t feel well
  • Times when I was anxious about something coming up the next day
  • Nights when I was dealing with conflict with someone that was eating me up (I can sit awake for hours at night having imaginary conversations and clenching my jaw so much that it hurts the next morning! I think there’s a reason the bible says don’t go to bed angry–Ephesians 4:26.)
  • Nights when I couldn’t quiet my mind from all the busyness and to-do lists
  • Sometimes nights when I brought sleep difficulty on myself due to drinking coffee after 5pm (I’ve gotta stick to decaf or herbal tea at night!)
  • Nights when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep

Here are some of the bible verses I’ve found and used to help me with sleep: Continue reading →