renown

rest.

i had no idea how much i needed rest until i started resting. didn't know how tired i actually was from this past year...

i just fell asleep on the couch today at like 11am without even meaning to. i was out cold.

earlier today i saw Rob Bell tweet something that perfectly describes my sabbaths. & vacation for me is simply a LONG yearly sabbath:

right on. just feeding my soul for these 2 weeks.

i love love love the part of vacation & all sabbaths where we just sleep in until we wake up. whenever that is. i hope i can train myself to sleep in until at least noon 1 of these days.

today was simply an amazing day of rest. and there are still double digit days of rest to go.

Crystal and i were chilling out in the ocean air by the pool and i had my iPod shuffling. randomly hit a song i hadn't heard in years. a flash back to high school days. i don't even know how it got on this iPod. but that song was very appropriate for this afternoon as i just sat there looking at God's amazing creation all around and resting in Him as a form of worship:


that shelter is BIG and this WONDER is endless.

i let it repeat a few times as i just rested.

i'm enjoying an awesome sabbath today. it's a day earlier than i expected, but also needed. i am so thankful for the simple pleasure of sabbath.

it's been quiet and i'm enjoying the SIMPLE and ORDINARY pleasures of this ordinary day. i'm keenly aware today of a bigger Presence. a God who is here. in this moment.

a God that we don't even have a name for... just titles like "God."

and i'm thankful. thankful for life and all its simple pleasures.
thankful for this sabbath to slow down and simply be present. present with an even bigger Presence. it's almost (or is) mystical.

i am SO thankful. i'm enjoying. i'm happy.

(This was originally posted on June 16, 2009.)
 
I love sabbath! (sabbath = basically a day of rest each week.) I have only truly understood it for the past 4 years or so. Louie Giglio and Rob Bell, 2 of my "mentors" helped me to "get" sabbath & dive into the awesome world of practicing it.
Thankfully those 2 men helped me understand and start practicing sabbath just a few months into my marriage. I think it was divine timing! (I had never done it before.)

[*Side note story warning] In fact, I can still vividly remember the exact time when I decided to practice sabbath rest each week. I was driving in my caddy listening to a Rob Bell talk back in '05 after we had just been married. I was in the drive thru line at the McDonald's near our house picking up dinner & his whole thing had been about sabbath & I was like "you know what... I'm gonna do it." One of the best decisions I ever made.

Basically 1 day a week I try to NOT do ANY work. (Like no work for my job). I just chill. I've done that for almost 4 years. Pretty much every Friday is my "sabbath." And it also doubles as date night with my wife, Crystal. I've written about that before HERE.

Because of a super busy schedule & some extra jobs I've taken, I haven't had a sabbath in about 2 weeks. UNTIL TODAY. a Tuesday. And WOW did I need it! (That was the 1st time I've ever gone this long without one since I started.) I can tell that life gets jacked up when I don't get a day of rest each week.
[Today I just went to a late breakfast with my wife @ Sunrise... my fav breakfast joint in Charlotte where I used to go with my dad once a week when I was a kid. Then we did a little grocery shopping. Had some fun at the house. Watched a chick flick she wanted to see & now we're going to sleep. Very spiritual day.]

When I was a little kid I thought sabbath was just a Sunday thing & we weren't supposed to mow the grass or God might strike us dead with a lightning bolt. haha... but the cool part is that God started sabbath as a favor to us.

**Take the whole "God side" out of it even... it's just common sense. You will simply work better, feel better, be happier, function better, be nicer, and enjoy life more! Seriously, try it for like 4 weeks in a row. You will be amazed. You probably won't stop.

Here's some things Louie helped me understand about sabbath:
(the parts below in "quotes" are from him...)
Sabbath is “a day to remember that He is God and we are not. Without Sabbath, we forget who we are and lose sight of who He is.” That's really the heart of it.
I committed to NOT let myself “get to the place where I truly believe the outcome of the story fully depends on me.” Because that would be laughable.

*I don't know about you, but my job NEVER ends. I could work 24/7. Literally ALL the time... and there would still be more to do. I can't leave my work at the office. So when it comes to this sabbath thing for me - there's so much pressure to work on Sabbath because there's SO MUCH to do!

BUT, Louie taught me that sabbath IS RESTING in knowing that "Everything doesn’t hinge on me. If I stop doing my part, the whole world will not fall apart. I am not in control. God made the whole world in six days without any input from me, or my assistance. God doesn’t need me to accomplish His work. I am little. God is huge. I trust Him.” I love it! Sabbath is me getting to heap glory on God through proving/showing my trust in His power & sovereignty.

*When I wake up everyday (after I stumble out of bed) I seriously try to remind myself that I’ve been invited “into an already-in-progress Story in which God was doing just fine long before my little feet ever hit the floor.”
- “Sabbath happens anywhere and everywhere we let go of the controls and lay the cares of our lives at His feet." = that's a pretty simple definition for you.
[most of those quotes are from Louie's pimp book i am not but i know I AM which you can click on to the right & buy it.]

Basically we are all (myself included) arrogant. I guess it can only be our own pride that tricks us into thinking that what happens is pretty much all up to ME. How freaking arrogant is that!??? but we totally act that way don't we!? "I can't take a day off because there's TOO MUCH TO DO!" haha... there's always gonna be too much to do, SO you may as well have a nice relaxing day of rest. :)

Sabbath. It's furious rest. It's a very spiritual thing. And I refuse to trade it for any amount of $ or extra production.

Yep, Crystal and i are going on an almost 2 week vacation. we'll be celebrating our 5th anniversary of being married! pretty crazy...

we've never been on a vacation this long, but we are SOOOO looking forward to it!

for us, vacation is a non-negotiable.
when i work, i work really hard (or at least i try to). i put everything into my work and i work a lot.

but when i rest (like on my weekly sabbath), i really go all out and do no work. So, on this vacation i won't have a laptop, i won't be checking emails or voicemails or texts... i won't have anything to connect me to work (except for my brain and i'm going to try to shut that down too).

When i can truly disconnect from work i come back to my job (which is also my passion) much SHARPER and very REJUVENATED. My ideas are better and i'm more excited to do it!
after a nice relaxing vacation i do my job way better.

+ my body just needs a vacation. very badly. my brain, my work and stress levels all need a break.
and i really just need some ALONE time with my wife. 2 weeks in a romantic place with NO agenda. that's what we need and we're excited to just be with each other 24-7 for a while with no one else around.

we're going to Punta Cana and staying at an all inclusive resort that is adults only. it's gonna be amazing. we don't even need to leave the place if we don't want to. i'm told it's somewhere out in the Caribbean. but honestly i don't care. i just want my beautiful wife and a beautiful beach to be there and i'm good.

1  sleep... a lot. basically as much as i want! no more 6am alarm every day. i'm gonna be LAZY for 2 weeks so i can not be lazy for the next 50.

2  spend a lot of awesome quality time with my God and my Creator in His beautiful creation. for me, time with God on the beach is like none other. it's amazingly intimate, experiential, mystical, deep, and sometimes ecstatic.

3  spend a lot of time with my gorgeous and amazing wife. She's my best friend and i like nothing better than to spend all my time with her!

4  read. that's just what i like to do at the beach. read... a lot. but i'll talk more about that in tomorrow's post!

5  have fun & eat way too much.

*So, i'm out for 2 weeks. i'll talk to some of you when i return. **There will still be daily posts on renown! there will be another guest blogger + i have several articles i just wrote that are set up to post, so keep checking in daily.
peace

a lot of times I work out my philosophy of something or my "theology" of a certain topic as i'm going through it. My philosophy and theology tend to be way more practical that way instead of just theoretical.

So, currently I am sick, but of course I also have to work.
I guess my philosophy of working while sick could be summed up as = "always show up if you can drag yourself to do it (unless it is harmful to you or someone else)."

Those are pretty much my practical thougths on the matter. If I'm sick (but not contagious - which would be harmful to others) then I drag myself to staff meetings on Mondays.
Yesterday morning I was pretty sick but was able to drag myself out of bed and into load in at Ridge at 6am. I functioned OK and went through all my responsibilities and I'm guessing most peeps wouldn't be able to tell that I was sick.
then i came home and crashed & rested hard the rest of the day.

This morning I woke up still sick and really wanted to stay in bed, but I always tell myself = If i lay in bed i'll just feel sick laying in bed, but if i get up and go to work i will feel sick while getting work done. May as well get some work done, right?

That's my philosophy. I try to at least do/accomplish something when I'm sick. Even if it's the easy tasks. Some things aren't worth it when you're sick, but still... you can at least do something.
Maybe this was ingrained in me from my Dad, who to my knowledge never missed 1 day of work due to sickness in all my 18 living at home?

I also put "rest" in the title because I recognize that sometimes you do just need to rest in order to get over a sickness. + I am a big time advocate of sabbath and that rest is a beautiful God-ordained & God-glorifying thing. You can read some more of my thoughts on rest/sabbath HERE and HERE.

Do you have a philosophy and/or theology of work & sickness?