I to Eye

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God … For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh.  Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.  Exodus 20:8-9, 11

The Exodus command, with its call to imitation, plays on a hidden irony:  we mimic God in order to remember we are not God.  In fact, that is a good definition of Sabbath:  imitating God so that stop trying to be God. ~ Mark Buchanon, The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath {emphasis in original}

Those two sentences in Buchanon’s book were most convicting to me.   I realized that I’m often guilty of believing I can’t stop, I can’t slow, I can’t rest, because if I do important things will not get done.   By pushing and racing and engaging in this frantic lifestyle of our culture I lost sight of my own humanity … I became my own idol.   I began to think of myself as indispensible, irreplaceable … as more than I am.

Believing myself so significant led to several attitudes and behaviors that were most unbecoming:

• pride
• selfishness
• haughtiness
• and, most sadly, blindness to others

We are called to rest … not only for our physical and emotional well-being, but also for our spiritual growth.   When we slow, our eyes are opened and we are able to truly see. How often did Jesus say, “He who has eyes let him see …”   We all have eyes … but we don’t all have seeing eyes.

I’ve learned to check my eyes by checking my “I’s.” The more I’m worried about myself and my agenda and my plans and my desires, the less my eyes are working the way God intended, the less I’m seeing.   We must learn to rest, to Sabbath, in order to keep our focus on God.

It’s been said, “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.”  But in this instance, I believe imitation is the key to continued growth.   Only by imitating God, by following His path, can we mature in Him. And, for many of us, that must begin with laying down self and taking up Sabbath.

How have you experienced busy-ness turn your eyes into “I’s”?