4) The Sabbath was a day that was unlike any other day (my favourite definition, the most common). It was one day in seven, that didn't look like the other six, therefore hitting a reset button in your brain, to let you start over. It's brilliant, which leads me to this application:
Do you have one day in seven that is unlike any other day? If not - why not? Why not start now?
Do you realise that: if it's a day, that's unlike any other day - it's going to be different for everybody? If you're a mother with six children, your day will be: a day without laundry. And guess what? The laundry will be there the next day! It will be okay. It will. It will be alright.
What day of the week do you not check your email? Do you have one day in seven, that you don't check your email? If not, why? Do you really believe you're so important, that if you didn't check your email for a day, that the world would quit turning?
Do you realise that, to think we're so important, that we have to stay in constant connection - to think we are that important to this world, puts so much pressure on us, that we'll die? That the journey to wholeness actually is found in taking just one - just one.
Have six days where you check your email 45 times a day; but one day in seven - why not make it different?
Why not remind yourself, one day in seven, that the world keeps going - even if you don't know what's going on in it? I'm telling you, if you do that for a month, it will reinforce a truth that will save your life, which is this:
The world goes on, because God is God, and you are not.
Do you have one day in seven, that you put your list away? Some of you are wired up to have lists, I'm not, so my one day in seven might be a day I get a list out. What day in seven do you put your list away? Do you know how healing it is?
If you get it, it'll save your life. Do you know how healing it is? Try it. Just pick one day this week - I don't care what day it is, but preferably not a day you have to work for a guy who's writing you a pay cheque. Take one day this week, where you pretend like the list is done, even if it's not. You're going to wake up the next day, and the world will still be turning, and the list is still going to be there, and you'll remind yourself: it will be okay. There's something very healing about that.
What day of the week can I not get in touch with you by cell phone? What day of the week, if I text you, would it be pointless? What day of the week do your chores not matter? And we wonder why we're broken. You know we all need deliverance, and we all need God to help us - and we do, we need that kind of stuff; but some stuff is just common sense. A lot of the pressure we put on ourselves, is put on by ourselves.
God designed us to have one day in seven that was different than any other day. Wives - if your house is a little bit dirty (or a lot dirty) - to have one day where that doesn't matter will save your life. It will be there tomorrow. It will. It'll save your life, and it might save your marriage.
Sabbath is a day where you live like your work is done, even if it isn't - and that is healing. Sabbath is a day where you are freed from your slaver driver of things to do. Sabbath is a day where you remember that He is God, and the world will go on, even if your list doesn't get done. To live differently is counter-productive.
There's a six in one biorhythm in creation, so if your rhythm isn't changing every seven days, if there's not one day in seven, that resets you to another rhythm - your life is boring. You get stuck on one rhythm. You're boring and counter-productive.