{"id":8864,"date":"2023-04-17T14:00:05","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T21:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/?p=8864"},"modified":"2023-04-15T10:35:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T17:35:46","slug":"take-time-to-rest-the-fount-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/2023\/04\/17\/take-time-to-rest-the-fount-account\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Time to Rest – The Fount Account"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week I am taking some long-overdo vacation time. I\u2019m not going anywhere, so I guess it is called a \u201cstay-cation\u201d! Sometime in January I realized that I had a lot of unused vacation time that I needed to take before the end of June, so I scheduled this 9-day vacation after Easter. I will also be taking some vacation next month as Cyndy, Nathan and I go to Texas to attend the graduation ceremony for our \u201cgranddaughter\u201d Olivia, and to visit our daughter and two of our grandchildren.<\/p>\n

I am a firm believer in rest\/vacation\/retreats\/\u2026 Sabbath!<\/p>\n

Sabbath, of course, is a commandment from God. In Exodus 20:8-11, we read:<\/p>\n

8<\/sup> Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9<\/sup> Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10<\/sup> But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work\u2014you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11<\/sup> For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Why did God command us to take a day off? Because He knew that if He simply made a suggestion that we observe Sabbath, we wouldn\u2019t do it. So, He made it a commandment! And still, we pretty much ignore it!<\/p>\n

Now, Sabbath is not simply a day off; it is purposeful rest. On Sabbath we are to stop all work-related activities. We are to focus on God, and His relationship with us. We are to do \u201cfun\u201d things, relaxing things, things that feed our souls and nourish our spirits. I practice Sabbath on my days off and on my vacations. It isn\u2019t just time off; it is time away from my daily labors in order to focus on what truly matters. On my day off (Fridays, for the most part), I stay away from social media and instead spend more time pondering, sitting in my backyard and observing (while trying not to plan on yardwork!). It is a good exercise for me, because usually I am constantly thinking about church work, sermon planning, and the like. I\u2019m constantly thinking about what is next and what I have to do to make sure whatever is next comes off without a hitch! It stresses me out!<\/p>\n

Sabbath makes me release that stress and to focus on God (not church, which is my work) and my relationship with Him.<\/p>\n

So, while I\u2019m away (through the 25th<\/sup>), I covet your prayers. Pray that I will be able to let go of my work-related stress and to dwell deeply in the presence of God.<\/p>\n

And I encourage you to take Sabbath time for your relationship with God.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week I am taking some long-overdo vacation time. I\u2019m not going anywhere, so I guess it is called a \u201cstay-cation\u201d! Sometime in January I realized that I had a lot of unused vacation time that I needed to take before the end of June, so I scheduled this 9-day vacation after Easter. I will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,404,354],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-news","category-sabbath","category-the-fount-account"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8865,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864\/revisions\/8865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}