Genesis 1:3 “So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that [God] had done in creation.”
Once a month, for Chat & Chow on Wednesday nights, our activity has been a reflective prayer service with Taizé hymns. We gather with poetry, pray about all the ways we’ve seen God in our day and the places we’ve overlooked God in our midst, and we sing hymns (sometimes in 4 part harmonies!). This time together is a chance to take a collective breath and consider the ways that God is walking with us in the busyness of life.
As a Pastor in the Church, I always hope that Sunday morning worship can be a place of rest and reflection for people, but I know that it’s easy to categorize it as “just another commitment”. We get bogged down by all the things we’ve volunteered for, all the activities that pop up on Sundays, and the things we’ve been putting off all week. We can easily forget to pause and honor what God has done in our lives and forget to notice all the ways that God is working in and through us in the world around us.
In the beautiful poetic story of Creation, after 6 days of building and creating, God saw that everything was good. So God rested. God who is mystical and bigger than anything we can understand or wrap our minds around, rested. Yet we think we can do better, we think we can go weeks or months at a time without slowing down and resting.
I’d like to challenge each of us this week, to find ways to pause and reflect on God’s work in this world. What are some simple ways you can add rest into your life, or invite God’s presence to be fully realized in the world around you. Maybe it’s saying a short prayer and taking a deep breath over a cup of coffee in the morning. Maybe it’s setting aside a half hour each week to reach out to a loved one you haven’t connected with in a long time. Maybe it’s taking a short walk or watching the sunset.
Whatever your practice is may you know that God invites you to rest, and names you a beloved child of God.
By Pr. Jon Fry
Questions for Reflection:
How can you incorporate more rest into your routine
How is God showing up in your life this week, or where have you overlooked God’s presence?
