Sunday is a day for renewal, involving reverence, rest, recreation, reading, rumination, re-visioning, refreshment, and relationships.
Reverence means focusing upon the Lord who can rejuvenate our spirits. This preferably includes church attendance where we can worship in community. In any event, it means recognizing once again that all good and perfect gifts come from God.
Rest might include the renowned Sunday nap, but it might not. God rested on the 7th Day of Creation not because he was tired but because he wanted to enjoy what he had done. Rest allows us to review and reconsider, ponder and appreciate. Rest is part of restoration. Rest usually means a pause, but it might also mean activity like recreation.
Recreation is another form of re-creation, rebirth if you will, an opportunity to juice the spirit and the mind as well as the body. Recreation can make you tired, but it’s a good tired rather than a stressful one. Watching sports is OK, especially when enjoyed with others. But getting active is probably more important for most of us in the couch-potato-culture in which we live.
Reading is still the best way I know of to exercise the mind, and it is one way the Lord speaks to us through his Word, the Bible. Unlike watching television, a passive activity, reading is an “active activity.” It introduces new thoughts and experiences, even if vicariously, and it increases both our vocabulary and our facility in using that vocabulary.
Rumination is a fancy word for thinking. In the Scripture it says Mary the Mother of Jesus witnessed the events following his miraculous birth and “pondered them in her heart.” She thought about them. Most of us, certainly me, would do better if we ruminated more and talked less. Meditation on spiritual matters is also important, one with an honored and worthy tradition in the history of the Christian Church.
Re-visioning is an opportunity to take stock. Are we on the right track? Do we need to adjust our heading if not our destination? Is there some new, bold, proactive step we could take in our lives that takes advantage of the time, talent, and treasure God has given us? Should we take a calculated risk? Is it time to step up and step out?
Refreshment can involve the obvious, food, nothing wrong with that. Food can involve quantity, type, or quality. Maybe we need to “eat better” rather than more. Or refreshment might mean re-energizing the spirit or body via the activities we’ve mentioned. The key is to find something we can do or experience that is different, i.e. non-repetition, from what we typically do day by day.
Relationships speaks to the opportunity the weekend in general and Sunday in particular usually affords for reconnection with family and friends. We don’t often admit it, but even the most individualistic among us needs others. We need each other for support, iron sharpening iron, or simply camaraderie.
It’s not that any or all of these things cannot be accomplished any day of the week. It’s just that most of us are far too professionally engaged to pause long to reflect about anything. Without reflection there is no renewal. No better day for that than Sunday.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2010
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