An Act of Discipleship
This Sunday is the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, which means we "spring forward" and we lose an hour on Sunday morning. It always seems to be a hard morning for everyone, and I certainly wish we did it another way. Some have been pushing for a while that we either eliminate Daylight Savings Time, or make it permanent. I would just be happy if we moved it from Sunday morning. What about Friday afternoon? Wouldn't everyone enjoy losing an hour a lot more then? You move the clock ahead an hour, say, at 4:00 pm and now it's 5:00 and the work week is over. Everyone celebrates, no one loses any sleep, and we still get our extra hour of daylight in the evenings.
But alas, I doubt anyone will be following my advice on that. Instead, we will lose some sleep and have to fight the battle of not coming to church in a sour mood on Sunday. We always try to beat the system at our house by setting the clocks ahead on Saturday afternoon, to try to acclimate ourselves, but it rarely works. Any way you slice it, that hour is gone--and will be, until it magically reappears in early November.
I hope you find a way to overcome it, and that you are able to get your rest and come ready for a great day of worship on Sunday. If our time together as a church on Sundays is as valuable as we say it is, it's worth making whatever preparations are necessary to put ourselves in position to get our sleep and ready our hearts for worship.
And really, it's good for us to understand how important to get our rest all the year round. In fact, the first task of every day--at least for most of us--is to get some sleep.
That may sound strange, if you are thinking that your day begins when the sun comes up or when the alarm clock goes off or when Starbucks opens. But the ancient rhythm of days, all the way back to the beginning of time, is different than that.
In the creation account in the opening pages of Genesis the order of the day is described this way: "And there was evening and there was morning--the first day." (Gen. 1:5) That is, each day in creation began with evening. Later, we know that in Jewish life, the Sabbath began not at sunup but at sundown.
The late pastor and author Eugene Peterson wrote that in placing the night before the day the Biblical writers help us to remember that everything doesn't depend on us. We go to sleep, God goes to work. The world keeps spinning, tides ebb and flow, and life goes on even though we are not here to superintend any of it. We are not in control, but He is.
"My soul finds rest in God alone," wrote the psalmist, and sleep is one of the ways that we find that soul rest. As we lay our heads down to sleep at night, in a strange way we do so as an act of faith. We are recognizing our part in this world, but we are sure to turn over the reins of our lives to Him and rest.
I am trying to learn that, both for my physical and spiritual health. I have long neglected rest in my life, as if somehow I didn't need it. buy that was at best naïve and at worst arrogant. God created me, and He designed me with a need for daily rest and restoration. To neglect that is not just disobedience to His will, it is also detrimental to my own well-being.
As author John Ortberg writes, planning and arranging to get enough sleep is an act of discipleship. Because when we don't, we often are not able to devote ourselves effectively to our walk with Christ and the ministries He has for us, simply because we are too worn out and pulled in too many directions to do so. We have to slow down our RPM's a bit and get some rest before we are able to fully focus our attention and devotion on Him.
So here's a pastoral call to get some sleep, not just for this weekend, but on a regular basis. It's not as an end in itself, but so that you can spend your waking hours "pressing on" toward the high calling Jesus has for your life. You can lay your head down at the beginning of your day--at night--knowing that God is in control and He can be trusted, and then wake up trusting Him with every minute of your day. I promise you won't regret it.
I am praying for you, as I hope you are for me, and I look forward to seeing you Sunday.
--Pastor Ken
