Tag: Sabbath

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How to Structure Your Day and Week to Connect with God

Connecting with God won’t happen by accident. We’ve got to be intentional.

The good news is that we can structure our day and week to connect with God. This can give us strength and refreshment in the midst of the daily grind.

Two ancient practices help us understand how to structure our lives to connect with God: the daily office and the Sabbath. I put these together based on the teaching of Peter Scazzero in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

The daily office refers to structuring your day around connecting with God. It refers to the practice of Christians throughout the ages who have read the Bible, meditated, sung, and prayed at set times throughout the day.

I think this practice can really help us in our busy, distracted lives. The key thing is to take what we already do and add short or long moments of connecting with God. Here are some examples:

  • Getting up ten minutes early to pray and read Scripture.
  • Listening to songs of praise while you shave or shower.
  • Praying with your children before they go to school or work.
  • Memorizing a Scripture passage or verse on the way to work or school.
  • Read a psalm and pray at the conclusion of your work time.
  • If you have a job where you work with people, pray through the people you work with.
  • Get a Bible app on your phone and have it send you a daily reading.
  • Have a meal time with all or some of the members of your family, and conclude it with reading the Bible and prayer.
  • Take a walk and observe nature around you, lifting your heart to the Lord.
  • Read a book at lunch time.
  • Have a regular phone or in person meeting with someone who will encourage you.

I wouldn’t suggest you do all of those things. Just try doing one or two of these things regularly instead of randomly. Make these practices a rule of thumb for yourself. Making them a rule helps ensure that we will actually do them. Urgent things tend to push out the most important. We have to fight for the important things. Also, we sometimes don’t feel like doing things in the moment that we should. The rule helps motivate us and keep us on track.

Don’t make your rules too iron clad. For example, if you didn’t pray before work one day, don’t worry about it. Do it the next time you go to work! A rule is meant to help you, not discourage you.

The Sabbath refers to our weekly structure. God commanded in the Ten Commandments that we would take one day in seven to set aside our normal labors and find delight in Him.

Most Christians observe a Sabbath to some degree. They also often incorporate other weekly practices that help them connect with God such as a Sunday School or small group. Some may have regular informal meetings with other Christians.

Think about your week. What are key things that could help you keep on track spiritually and connect with God? Schedule those in. That is the principle of Sabbath applied to our week.

Adding little times to connect with God throughout our day and longer times in the week can really help us find the joy and peace that God intends for us to have. Short times are less daunting, and they can be more regular. This keeps us connected to a refuge for our souls throughout the day. As Peter Scazzero explains in his book, the daily office and Sabbath can improve our emotional health and build our relationship with God. When we connect with God, we can be less frantic and more joyful. It just takes a little planning.

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What is Holiness?

“We don’t smoke, and we don’t chew, and we don’t run with boys who do.” If people think of holiness, they may think of something like that old caricature of holiness.

But people don’t usually think about holiness. Holiness is one of those concepts the Bible uses that we don’t run into very often in our daily lives. It’s a concept that is at the periphery of our civilization.

For the writers of the Bible, however, it was very important. When they pictured the throne room of God, they described the angels around God’s throne saying, “Holy, holy, holy!”

God is absolutely holy. This means He is absolutely perfect and pure, set apart from everything else. Now note: He not only has this perfection, He is devoted to it and delights in it. This may seem strange until we remember that God is Triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That means the Father is devoted to the glory of the Son and the Holy Spirit as each member of the Trinity is to the other.

This gives us some idea of what it means when God says, “Be holy as I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2).

In the Bible, God is not the only one who is holy. Places are holy like the temple. Things are holy like the ark. People are holy like the priests.

This means that they are set apart from service to other things. In this sense, the caricature of holiness (“We don’t smoke, and we don’t chew . . .”) has something right in it. We separate ourselves from evil things and even from the misuse of good things.

Take the Sabbath, for example. The Sabbath involves setting aside things we do on the other six days. So, many people think of it merely in terms of not working.

But being set apart is about being set apart for something. It is about being set apart unto the Lord Himself. It means seeing His glory and delighting and finding joy in it. That is holiness.

There is an instructive scene on this point in the book of Nehemiah. When the Israelites returned to the land, they celebrated the Feast of Booths. During this Feast, the priests would read the law of God. When the people realized it, they were filled with a sense of their own disobedience, and this rightly grieved them. However, Nehemiah told them: “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (8:10). Let go of other things and rejoice in the Lord. That is holiness.

In one of my Doctor of Ministry classes, Dr. Steve Childers gave me this definition of holiness that I’ve relished ever since. He said, “Holiness is loving God and others well while maintaining our joy.”

This gives holiness quite a different flavor than what we are used to. The more I think about it, though, the more I believe that Dr. Childers had captured the positive side of holiness. Holiness sets us apart from certain things that will harm us or lead us in a wrong direction to send us in the right direction: finding our delight in service to and love of God. Holiness is about joy. Any talk about holiness that fails to mentions this should be proscribed. We were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That is holiness.

Even though we don’t use the word holiness much in our society, we are all looking for something bigger that can give our lives meaning, purpose, and joy. The trouble is we seek it in things that can’t really provide it. Thus, the call to holiness–finding that meaning, purpose, and joy in God alone. This is a purpose and joy that will not disappoint, and this is holiness.

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