Once I said in a sermon that we are sometimes thankful when we get sick because we finally have an excuse to take some time off. How true that is.
I love my life and everything that I do but I have to admit that it is very busy. And my almost-three-year-old doesn’t understand why I go away (and Mommy stays at home). I’m very careful to take a day off and spent quality time with my family but lately it has still been very crazy…until we got sick. This week has been great.
Because both Eden and I were sick on Sunday, we stayed in the house all day. I worked a few hours Monday and cancelled my evening meetings. Our Tuesday night meeting was cancelled again due to sickness. So that meant for three days in a row we did nothing. After I came home from the Element last night and beat Jess in a game of chess (of course), I paused to recognize how much I love being with my family and how great this week has been – simply because we sat around the house and did nothing.
I’m not advocating a life of doing nothing – you might as well die if that were the case – what I am an advocate of, however, is a life of regular Sabbath rest. I preached a message on Sabbath rest one time and a few “critics” came up to me afterwards and said, “We grew up understanding that in order to eat you had to work hard. But my son thinks like you do, that it’s better to just sit around all day and live off everybody else’s work.” That’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that sometimes we don’t work simply to eat or to make a difference in the world, sometimes we work because we’re addicted to it’s high.
I think God uses these times of sickness to help us recognize the fact that the things we work for, and get so worked up over, are in all actuality not very important. They’re good but not as good as family. I think sickness makes us realize that the world can go on without us. What a liberating idea.
9 Comments
February 28, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I strongly advocate being!!!
February 28, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Thanks Esther. I heard someone once say something like, ‘when we cease to “be” we are no longer a human “be”ing’…or maybe it was ‘we forget the “being” part of human “being”‘
Whatever it was it was kinda cheezy but very true.
February 28, 2008 at 5:04 pm
“We grew up understanding that in order to eat you had to work hard. But my son thinks like you do, that it’s better to just sit around all day and live off everybody else’s work.”
Obviously someone was reading a little too much into the sermon. Don’t you just love those “encouraging”‘ comments?
I appreciated your thoughts on sickness. I just read in Desiring God today: “If we are Christ’s, then what befalls us is for His glory and for our good, whether is is caused by enzymes or by enemies.” I had to think of you…and that was before I saw your post.
February 28, 2008 at 5:48 pm
And you have yet to thank me for your spiritual experience….
hmmm… see if i get you sick again…
February 29, 2008 at 9:07 pm
i thoroughly enjoyed the time with you as well. god certainly has a wonderful sense of humor. love you hun!
February 29, 2008 at 9:08 pm
So do you think the Lord God allowed your sickness to personally teach you something?
How does that pan out to people with terminal sickness? Are they not learning what God is teaching them?
Go ahead and so the words…I will. I am jerk.
February 29, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Scott – good point and question.. I do have a thought on that but I might just turn it into another post..
btw, what does “Go ahead and so the words…I will. I am jerk.” mean?
March 2, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Those words were to provoke a response. I was being argumentative.
March 3, 2008 at 3:04 pm
you arguer, you!