The Unforced Rhythms of Grace!

Psalm 127

1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
2 In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to those he loves.
3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

I grew up in a home with a strong work ethic. My father worked as a machinist for Union Carbide. He faithfully woke up every weekday morning at 6am, he would put on the oatmeal porridge, God bless him, make our lunches and all too often would rest the banana on the sandwich. Hey, I’m not complaining, but he took his work seriously

My dad was all over Proverbs 6:10,11

A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest-
11 and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.
So, what do we do with that?

How do we really relax and not feel guilty?

BUT how do we balance that with this?

Matthew 11:28-30
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

It is my desire that we learn the unforced rhythms of grace as it relates to balance between work and rest. We are going right back to Genesis 1 to discover how to live life according to how we have been created, to live our day according to the way He designed our week and to live our moments in God sized consciousness.
Genesis 1:24 – Genesis 2:2

1. Living Life According To How I Am Created

Let’s get back to basics

v28 You are blessed.

We are blessed when we fear the Lord as we find great delight in His commands. Psalm 112:1 -9

But all too often we can’t receive from the Lord because we are holding on to what we have worked for. You can’t receive until you let go of what is in your hands right now.
v28be fruitful and increase in number– certainly there was a call here to have children,
Now, the broader picture is that he designed us to do wonderful things, to be fruitful speaks of producing all that is good. There is authority as well to be good stewards, we have been given the job of taking care of God’s creation

v29,30 Eat well – I give you…Seed bearing plants, trees that have fruit and every green plant for food.
God wants us to live healthy lives. It begins by eating right, eating healthy. I said we are getting back to basics and we are going to talk about what we eat. Now, you might say, Jack what do my eating habits really have to do with my spiritual life? I would say quite a lot. Our eating habits will determine whether we are sluggish or feel energetic. Too much sugar laden or processed foods and we become vulnerable to all kinds of bad stuff!
Our bodies need greens. God has provided vegetables and fruits that are rich in vitamins or if you want the technical terms, rich in antioxidants. Why do people in Papua not have issues with cancer? It is a healthy and steady diet of sweet potatoes!

2. Living My Days The Way God Designed My Week

Now, what day did God create Adam and Eve? the 6th day… What happened on the 7th day. They rested. There is something that Adam and Eve learned right away and that is this. On their first full day, it was a holy day, a day to rest. They rested. The thing we can learn is this:

Resting in God’s abiding presence is the only way that we can be successful in what he has called us to do.

It is like a pendulum swinging in a natural rhythm.


Look at Jesus in Mark 1:32-35 Jesus understood the great need for rest and spiritual revitalization in his own life. Here we find Him coming off an evening of intense ministry only to be found early the next morning in a place of quiet solitude with His Father.

When the pendulum is in the middle, it isn’t moving. It is static. The same is true in our Christian lives we are either moving forward or losing ground. There is no place for the status quo.

If you want to discover real fire and passion in your spiritual life, then you need to understand real rest and come away for greater rest.
The same is true of fruitfulness and growing as the pendulum swings.

Greater abiding = greater fruitfulness.
More pruning = more growing.

The greater the rest, the greater the passion, the greater the time is spent in abiding, the more fruit that will be evident.

Not only do we need to eat well, we need to sleep well.

From the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care
Sleeping problems are quite common and one in four Canadians are impacted by sleep deprivation. Not getting enough sleep or not sleeping well can significantly affect your health, daily performance, alertness and productivity.

In that article it mentioned meditation can help you relax and take your mind off these stressors! We just take it one step further….Joshua 1:8,9

So, why am I talking to you about your sleeping patterns because your lack of it will cause you to argue with people more, do subpar work, be less loving and more irritable with our spouses, children, friends. Let’s just say you are no fun to be around!

The same is true if you are the disciplined one who wakes up every morning at the crack of dawn to do your ‘devotions’ and yet you are cranky with your kids and fall asleep at the dinner table…

God is more interested in your devotion that your devotions…check out Psalm 63

People who lead spiritual retreats state that the number 1 issue for people is fatigue when it comes to spending time in prayer.

What happened to the disciples in Gethsemane when Jesus wanted them to pray?

Brother Lawrence, a man who practiced the presence of God, wrote. Those who have the wind of the Holy Spirit in the sails glide ahead even while asleep.

Look at the end of each day of creation. The order is the same. And there was evening and there was morning…the first day…second. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?? Each day in creation begins in the evening to teach us the lesson that everything doesn’t depend on me. I go to sleep, God goes to work.

In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to those he loves. Psalm 127:3

Dr. Mark Smutny shares on understanding the Hebrew day,

In order to understand the Hebrew day, we have to take an imaginative leap. In the Hebrew consciousness, a day is the basic unit of God's creative work. Evening is the beginning of that day. In the evening, God speaks light, stars, earth, vegetation, animals, man and woman into being. It is also a time when we quit our activity and then go to sleep. We drift into unconsciousness for the next six to eight to ten hours in which we are totally unproductive and have zero cash value.

We then jump out of bed and rush out the door to get things started only to discover that everything was started hours ago. All the important things were already underway while we were asleep. The sun is already rising without me. The operation is half over already. The plan is already basically established. The lights are on, the assignments given, God's creative plan is already unfolding. We wake into a world we didn't make. We live by salvation, we didn't earn.

Morning comes. God invites to enjoy and share and develop the work that God already has initiated. We work. We engage in creative endeavor. We pour our own souls into it because grace has already been provided. We do not need to hold up the skies for the skies are already there. We only need to look at them and appreciate their beauty and their wonder.

Who’s fooling who. We know that if we ‘burn the candle at both ends’ as my dad always said to me, we will pay for it sooner or later. We can’t keep living like that and not expect things to start falling apart.

It was Howard Hendricks that said 75% of our spirituality is a good night of rest!

We have talked about eating well and sleeping well and now we are ready to live well as God has created us.

3. Living My Moments In God Sized Consciousness - back to verse 27

It is not so much that we learn to embrace our moments, but that we learn to embrace God in the everyday moments of our lives.

What about God-sized consciousness or awareness to divine appointments…

Spending the day with God doesn’t mean that are whole day will change, but we will change the way that way that we do things. We will do them with God!

v27God created man in his image. What is image – It is more than a picture.

A better word here in Genesis 1;26,27 would be imprint or impression. It is the picture of God leaving his handprint on us when He fashioned us from clay. The impression that God puts on you can never fade away. We are a representation of God, mind, body and spirit. Have you discovered the unique fingerprints that God has left on you?

It can be as easy as starting the morning when you wash your face. I can pray a prayer of God’s cleansing of my thoughts, my attitudes. As I go down to breakfast, I can follow through on His command to ‘eat my toast with joy….yes its bread in Ecclessiastes!

I have also read that even the ancient Hebrews considered the other end of the digestive process as a gift from God as well. They had a prayer to be said after going to the bathroom that went like this, “Blessed art Thou, O God, who hast made the openings in my body!”

I don’t know if you want to go that far but…

Take your everyday moments and live them with God sized consciousness instead of absent minded, program oriented, robotic like tendencies!

Do you ask the HS to guide you as you prepare your budget?
Do you ask God if He has a word for the guy who you see at the convenience store?...the guy who you see when you pay for your gas? Or is just simply paypass…pass on the opportunity. I’m preaching to myself as well.

Finally,

Can you identify how God has had his hand on your everyday life or how He can be involved in your everyday life?


The Takeaway


We were not designed to rest from our work, but work from our rest!