Becoming Spiritually Healthy by Stopping to Breathe

THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY - LESSON 14 – Becoming Spiritually Healthy by Stopping to Breathe

How many of you have ever driven through a whiteout?  What was that like?  (My story – Gaylord – Up North - Audio)

Many of us have lost our way in the blizzard of life.  Perhaps the demands from work, family, church, our lives are full and overflowing.  We multitask so much that we fail to realize anymore that we are doing 3 things at once.  Interestingly, our role models are people who get a lot done in a short time.  We envy them and model our behavior after what we think they are doing and accomplishing.  Our weekdays are full of work, tending to children and the tasks and hand and we look forward to the weekend only to discover more that has to be done and the time is filled.  So much for free time!  Some of us even feel guilty when we aren’t busy thinking we are wasting time when we are not productive/ doing something.

So what happens if this is our life and the storms and trials of life blow into our lives?  We are in trouble!  There is no margin for the unexpected.. no margin even for the pleasant surprises!  So.. what do we do?  Read another book, listen to another sermon or go to another seminar on time management, stress, margin, balance? - it is just not going to do it.  God is offering us a rope to pull us out of the whiteout.  The rope, Pastor Scazzero suggests are two ancient disciplines called – the Daily Office or what some call Divine Office or Fixed Hour of Prayer & the Sabbath.  Neither are meant to add a burden or another item on the to-do list – the intention must be that we ‘want to’ rather than ‘have to’.  These 2 disciplines will bind us to the living God like no other. There are many other spiritual disciplines of course, and we have talked about them in prior classes and they are all threads in the rope we are talking about tonight.  The heart of these 2 disciplines is stopping to surrender.  They help us surrender and accept our limitations that we discussed last week.

We must get to a place where we accept God’s rhythm for us that started back in Genesis.  God created… He rested/ stopped.  Adam and Eve toiled, they rested.  We are invited by God as they were to have action but also passivity, to strive but also let go, to do all we can do, then be carried and surrender.  Robert Barron tells us that the essence of being in God’s image is our ability, like God, to stop.  We imitate God by stopping our work and resting.  If we can stop for one day a week and stop for mini-Sabbaths each day, we touch something deep within us as image bearers of God.  We were all wired for this rhythm, not the one most of us are keeping!

So.. let’s talk about each of these and what they look like in our lives.  I have to be honest with you, as I studied for this lesson, it totally rattled my cage!  And.. I believe it is going to rattle yours a bit as well.

Let’s start with The Divine Office – The Divine/Daily Office was created by monks centuries ago and the intent is to arrange our lives around it rather than the other way around.  It is also a means to keep us aware of God’s presence while we work and it enables us to maintain a healthy balance.

Of course, none of us are monks but.. we must accept and realize that much of what they do can be found in Scripture.   

Biblical Examples: 

David practiced set times of prayer seven times a day (Psalm 119:164). 

Daniel prayed 3 times a day (Daniel 6:10). 

The Jews in Bible times prayed 2-3 times a day.  

 Jesus himself probably followed the Jewish custom of praying at set times every day.   

His disciples continue to pray at certain hours of the day (Acts 3:1 & 10:9). 

All of these Biblical examples and those that followed throughout the ages, have found that stopping periodically during the day for the Divine Office is the key to creating a continual and easy familiarity with God’s presence.  Like Brother Lawrence’s phrase that most of us have heard, ‘practice of the presence of God’.  If we do this, I think we will, as Pastor Peter did, find there is great power in setting apart small units of time for morning, midday and evening prayer. It will cause us to be more deeply aware of the ‘sacred’ – actually eliminating the division of the sacred and the secular.

What are the elements of the Divine Office?  It will be different for each of us.  Ideas – those who like structure: write prayers, journal, pray the psalms… or… you could read a portion of a book, devotional, or you could simply go outside and take in the beauty of God’s creation as you focus on Him – aim at 3 times a day and choose the length of time best suited for you.  The key, remember, is regular remembrance of God, not length (2 – 20 min – 45 – it’s up to you). Be creative in your use of time but be sure to include these elements:

1.    Stopping – stop all activity, unhurried. Maybe give up control again and again at each Office and choose to trust.

2.    Centering – sounds a bit New Age to us.. but it’s not..it is Biblical.  Ps 37:7 says “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

And Ps 46:10 ““Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.” ……  

How do we center? – be attentive and open – sit still – sit straight – breathe slowly, deeply and naturally – close your eyes or lower them to the ground (this helps with distractions)  If your mind wanders, focus on your breath – we do this in Outstretched in Worship on Monday nights - what a wonderful way to exercise, center/connect with God.  As you breathe in, ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit. As you exhale/ breathe out, exhale all that is sinful, false and not of Him.

3.    Silence – Dallas Willard has called silence and solitude the 2 most radical disciples of the Christian life. We need to take time to be absent from people and things to focus on God. Silence is quieting every inner and outer voice to tune in to God. We live in a noisy world – research indicates that an average group can only bear 15 seconds of silence… hmmm… I think we see this confirmed in our church services.    God speaks in the silence .. no wonder so many of us struggle to hear His voice.  

4.    Scripture – The Psalms are a good place to start – what a great prayer book. Regardless of what you read, read it slowly and thoughtfully.. maybe even read and pray the Lord’s prayer.

A daily divine office might look like:

Silence & Centering (2-5 min), Opening Prayer, Scripture reading, Prayer for Others/Self, Optional Devotional Reading, conclude with Silence    

The second important practice to help us get back into our godly rhythm is practicing the Sabbath.

Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word that means “to cease, to stop working”. It refers to doing nothing related to work for a 24-hour period each week.  During this time, we should be orienting ourselves and everything around us as ‘holy’ – meaning ‘separate, a cut above’. (see Genesis 2:2-3). On our Sabbath, we are imitating God by stopping our work and resting.

Honestly… we must all admit right here right now.. that this seems impossible to most of us.  It seems radical and extremely difficult to accomplish in our everyday lives. Our culture knows nothing of setting aside a whole day to rest and delight in God! Like most of you, I have always considered it important and valuable but have not fully implemented it in my life. I am convinced after studying this for some time and then reading it again in Peter Scazzero’s book that we all must understand the Sabbath is a command from God as well as an incredible invitation.  I have always looked at it as an invitation.  How about you? 

We must come to grips first of all with the fact that Sabbath Keeping is one of the Big 10 – the 10 Commandments.  Therefore, if we are going to be in obedience to God, we must start keeping this command. Of course, just like all the others, it is present for our good.  God has a designed rhythm for our lives and that rhythm includes the Sabbath day of rest. Interesting that of all the 10 commandments, commandment #4 is the longest – there is more explanation.  Let’s review them:

1.Don’t have other gods before Him, 2. no idols, 3. don’t misuse God’s name, 5. honor your parents, 6. don’t murder, 7. don’t commit adultery, 8. don’t steal, 9. don’t lie, 10. don’t covet… and #4 is :  “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The Sabbath commandment calls us to build the doing of nothing into our schedules each week.  Nothing measurable is accomplished.  What is accomplished?  One theologian said it this way: ‘To fail to see the value of simply being with God and doing nothing, is to miss the heart of Christianity’. Interesting that the Jews have been so faithful to this commandment... and it has actually been used to serve as a witness to the world.  Not so for modern day Christians. If we were doing this right, we would be bearing witness to the way we understand life God’s way – life’s rhythms, gifts, meaning, and its ultimate purpose in God.  When we observe the Sabbath, we affirm that God is the center and source of our lives.  Eugene Peterson points out that the “Sabbath is not primarily about us or how it benefits us; it is about God and how God forms us…I don’t see any way out of it; if we are going to live appropriately in the creation, we must keep the Sabbath”.

4 Principles of a Biblical Sabbath

Note:  there is a huge difference in a Biblical Sabbath and a ‘day off’ – A day off is about replenishing ourselves physically, getting refreshed, etc.  A Biblical Sabbath must include the following:

1.    Stop – Embrace your limits.  God is God.. you are not.  You are His creation with limitations and the world will not stop if you stop. The core spiritual issue around stopping is ‘trust’. Will God take care of us and our concerns if we obey him by stopping to keep the Sabbath?  When we trust God and obey His commands, He provides.  Jesus will take our ‘loaves & fishes’ that we offer Him and somehow miraculously and invisibly multiply them.  We truly can trust Him enough to STOP!

2.    Rest – Once we stop, the Sabbath calls us to rest. God rested, we must do the same (see Genesis 2:1-4). What do we do after we stop? How do we rest?  The answer: anything that delights and replenishes you – it could be napping, working out, going for walks, reading, watching a good movie, going out to eat… might be best to avoid the computer or cell phone unless you can be sure to just look or respond to things that are strictly personal in nature.. It may be a good practice to have a separate e-mail address for personal vs. business/ work related issues.  Keep in mind that when you institute your Sabbath, you are going to have to allow time in the rest of your week to get things done that are separate from your profession but are still ‘work’ for you – balancing your checkbook, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, etc, etc.

As we develop our Sabbath, we may need to do this gradually.  Here is a list that we can start with – pick work as #1 and then add 2 or 3 more as you go over the next few months – things to rest from:

-        work

-        physical exhaustion

-        hurriedness

-        multitasking

-        competitiveness

-        worry

-        decision making

-        catching up on errands

-        talking

-        technology & machines

Stopping and resting causes us to respect our humanity and the image of God in us. We are not nonstop human beings. Sad to say but it can take a physical illness such as cancer, heart attack, the flu, or whatever to get us to rest and begin to take this seriously!  Remember Jesus’ words… paraphrased ‘We don’t serve the Sabbath. The Sabbath serves us.’

3.    Delight – the third component to a biblical Sabbath revolves around delighting in what we have been given. Genesis 1:31 says God, after finishing his work; delighted.. He said ‘it was very good’. The Hebrew phrase here communicates a sense of joy, completion, wonder and play.  Most of us in our culture are ‘delight deficient’. Because there has been a distortion of delight and pleasure in our world, most Christians struggle with receiving joy and pleasure – they/ we sometimes feel guilt or discomfort with the whole concept. Sabbaths are the times we can begin to rewrite what we have been believing perhaps.  It can be a time that we take great delight in God’s creation.  We should slow down and enjoy…. Pay attention to smelling, tasting, touching, seeing the beauty all around us – and relish the opportunities and experiences.   We need to slow down, pay attention and delight in people as well.  Allow yourself to be ‘into’ the beauty of people around you – God’s creations, made in His image. Allow room for unexpected encounters and conversations with neighbors, friends and family, etc.

Finally, delight in… enjoy healthy play whether through sports, dance, games, looking at old photos, visiting a museum .. play.. enjoy..

4.    Contemplate – The final quality of a Sabbath is the contemplation of God. Our Sabbath should be holy to the Lord (Exodus 31:15). Ponder the love of God, worship, read and study Scripture, be silent. On every Sabbath we need to reflect on and experience a taste of what is yet to come in heaven. Our short earthly lives need to be put into perspective. If we are going to do this part of our Sabbath right, we will need to plan and prepare.  When will be have worship? A time of silence?, etc.. ?  You could create a set tradition or keep it flexible ... have a plan but don’t be overly structured.  Look at the Sabbath as a ‘snow day’ – all the stores are closed, work is shut down, school is closed – you now have the gift of a day to do whatever you want – no obligations, pressures or responsibilities. You have permission to play, be with friends, take a nap, read a good book.. it’s a ‘no obligation’ day.  God gives it to you… every 7^th day.. it’s up to you to receive this gift. The interesting thing that all of us will find as we practice the Sabbath is that the other days of week will become infused with some of the qualities we are developing in our Sabbath. …hmmm.. perhaps that is all a part of God’s plan.

What about longer Sabbaths/ called Sabbaticals?

Longer periods of Sabbath rest are very clear in Scripture – see Leviticus 25:1-7 where God commands Israel to give the land a Sabbath rest every seven years.

For us as human beings – longer Sabbaths can be considered our vacations – we should view all or part of that time as Sabbath – therefore, we need to think this through when planning our vacations.. for example, a 3 or 4 day trip to Disney World may not constitute a Sabbath vacation. 
We need leisure time away to rest and focus.  In other words… when we plan, we probably shouldn’t be saying we need a vacation from our vacation.

Second, it would be helpful to participate a few days a year at a spiritual retreat – this would be considered a Sabbatical of sorts. Even going away over night somewhere can be a personal retreat – maybe every 4-6 months. Going on a mission trip with a group could also be considered a longer Sabbath. 

Thirdly, take a break from ministry work  - let someone fill in for you while you take a few weeks or months away whether you are a small group leader, usher, children's ministry worker, etc.. take a break – especially if it has been an extended period of time.  Some Pastors take 3-4 months off every 6-7-8 years.

God is seeking us.  He wants us to come back home to Him – the Devine/ Daily Office and the Sabbath are ways for us to slow down to God’s rhythm and be pulled out of the ‘whiteout’/ blizzards of life. If we are going to become spiritually health, we need to ‘stop to breathe’.

THE PATHWAY TO HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY-LESSON 14

Becoming Spiritually Healthy by Stopping to Breathe - GROUP WORK

1.       Share your initial reaction to the Divine/Daily Office?  What value do you see for yourself personally in this practice?

2.       Share your ideas on what your Divine Office will look like – when? What?

3.       As we consider the second important practice in how to ‘stop and breathe’ – The Sabbath, share what your current practice is.  

4.       As we consider The Sabbath – what new insights did you gain tonight about it? – it’s importance, how God sees it

5.       What steps will you take this coming week to begin to make a change toward both of these practices?