The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living
God’s sit in in my life these past three years of an antilegalistic stance on the issue of Sabbath keeping has been learning to see the mercy and truth in the promises of God in Isaiah “If you turn your foot from the Sabbath…” promises. I believe God’s word and I believe to see the answer of the Lord in the land of the living on this regard.
Am I remembering the Sabbath on the Sundays that I work?
Was I keeping the Sabbath on the Sundays that I haven’t worked?
Is God a promise keeper, more than we imagine?
I will take these questions individually.
God has established a “sit-in” on my life in quite the way that I would never have expected him to. In our history of America, the racist injustices that my people have endured have evoked a personal response of “Sit ins” to attempt to call attention to the reality of hypocrisy that has certainly been a part of our National Life. My relationship with God began in my mid teen years where I turned my life over to him and attempted to become more acquainted with him by searching His word for answers as to who He is and what he requires of us. My family didn’t share my understanding of the importance of Sabbath keeping through out my life and I gained many an intellectual and spiritual debate about the importance or lack of importance of evangelical Sabbath keeping. This was piled on many a disagreement of spiritual priorities. I will only address the question of Sabbath keeping because of limits of attention in this season and it’s application to my personal “Sit In” experience.
“I see the Lord’s train fill the temple…” was a song that we sang as a family and crowned our personal and familial experience from the time of Grandma Ruth’s passing until this day. The vision of God’s train expanding outside of the temple of the Lord to invade such unwelcoming places as higher education was beyond my imagination until lately. We have so many god-fearing people who have by necessity had to make their Sabbath rest a part of their sacrifice to feed their families. The warfare of culture against the godly had come to this and I saw that I am not the only one who has experienced this financial dearth and coverage dearth, etc.
Lord, I believe, help my unbelief! I believe that you are concerned about your glory on the earth and I believe that you intend to break in on the godlessness of our culture, but I don’t necessarily want to be the vehicle of bringing you into the higher education realm, for sure!
I am not the only Christian struggling with this argument in my job expectations on Sundays. It seems that God has chosen many a very intent praying person to spend their Sundays praying and praising and putting their convictions aside to simply pay for shelter and food. Jobs are less and less accepting your convictions for Spiritual things as an influence and yet they will make accommodations for other things, like furthering your education, and other things. I am concerned about this. How I got into this mess is not applicable as much as what God has shown me there.
His train is overflowing the temple, even in a hostile time of antichurch sentiment in our country. God is discriminated against and He is staging a sit in in my life and in higher education!
God grant me strength to see and to amend. And may His great mercy bring us to the other side without having completely ejected Him from our borders!
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