Half-Empty or Half-Full (It's a Sabbath Thing)?

People, when they are sorting through life, looking over a situation, will sometimes use the phrase, "Do you see the cup as half-full or half-empty?" The point being, of course, that some of us see things in the worst possible light...and others see a situation from a more positive perspective.

I've been silent for awhile. No blogging. And that has been because the cup hasn't been half empty or half full but overflowing! Overflowing with lots of good stuff...great things going on in the church, trips back and forth to Columbus, Ohio to visit Olivia and Ella, quick trips to ski or to catch a film. And life has been overflowing with some things that are challenging. I won't go into detail about those but let's just say pastoring a large church, which is passionate about reaching and serving a region for Christ, that is in the middle of big changes...well, that can get kind of crazy!

So the cup has been overflowing.

Even a recent, super cool trip out to Washington D.C. was a part of this overflowing thing. Preached Saturday night, packed my stuff before heading to bed late, preached three more times on Sunday morning, jumped in the car for Columbus...hung out...re-packed a van and headed for D.C....a U-2 concert that was awesome but kept me out until 1:30 in the morning... granddaughters to play with first thing the next morning...all delightful....a drive home that ended at 3:30 in the morning.

Non-stop. Pretty much non-stop.

Not much time to write on the blog.

You understand, right?

I've been home about a week, since that DC trip, and have been very sick most of the week. I'm getting better but this is going to be slow.

Our bodies have a way of encouraging us to observe Sabbath, don't they? For five days I have been unable to speak...so I thought I would take this chance to write.

Too much can be too much -even if it is too much good.

Stopping is a good thing.

So here I am...stopping...forced to the side of the road...weak as a kitten...and discovering the world seems to do okay without me making sure everything is just fine.

God has this simple idea. He shares it with Moses and the Hebrew ex-slaves in Exodus 20:8-10: "Remember the Sabbath. Every seven days you need to stop. Every member of the family. Even your dogs and cats and cattle. Let everybody have time to breathe!" (Okay... well, I've taken a few liberties with the text but you get the point, right?)

Too much can still be too much.