I am reading a book by Wayne Muller called Sabbath. You see I at times have trouble with rest. By rest I don’t mean the physical activity of sleeping – though I have issues there too, but that is another story. No, I think that Sabbath is more than that – it is a mental, physical, & spiritual resting from the business of life by quieting ourselves and coming into the presence of God. Muller puts it this way:
When the moment of rest had come, the time for healing was over. He (Jesus) would simply stop, retire to a quiet place, and pray.
Muller goes on to say this about prayer.
When Jesus prayed He was at rest, nurished by the healing spirit that saturates those still, quiet places. In the Jesus tradition, prayer can be a practice of simply being in the presence of God, allowing the mind to rest in the heart.
The take away here, the thing that we need to remember and practice is that the Sabbath is so much about a specific day or time, it is the practice of recognizing when Sabbath rest is needed and then stealing away to the quiet place to pray and enter into Gods presence.