Batteries and The Sabbath

A while back, I found myself reaching for the lamp switch. As I turned it, the familiar blue flash indicated to me that the bulb had burned out. I then reached for the flashlight to find the light very dim, the batteries had died. Finding this an unacceptable means for shining light into the darkness, I went looking for fresh batteries.

This may be reaching*, but I couldn't help but see* the correlations between darkness/light* and blind/sight* analogies along with the concept of “burning out”* or needing “batteries recharged”*.

*All puns intended.

In Mark 1 : 35 – 39; Jesus himself goes into privacy to recharge His spiritual batteries. How much then should we, His followers, do so? There is great emphasis on sleep, eating and staying hydrated in order to recharge physical and mental batteries. How about the spiritual ones?

Everyone knows that they eventually recharge their phone and laptop batteries. Everyone knows they need to refill the gas (or petrol for those of you reading from Europe) in their vehicles. Everyone knows they need a holiday (vacation for those of you reading in the States) to recharge themselves. Yet, how easy is it to forget that prayer, meditation and fasting are all important to rest and recharge one's spiritual batteries?

Put another way; the Greek history includes the story of Marathon, a man who ran the distance from a military victory back to the capitol. Once he arrived and reported the news of the victory, he collapsed and died. In one view, this is an illustration of what happens when a person runs himself ragged without rest (Or in modern terms; a pastor running his Ford Focus ragged driving all over a county promoting His Church's events. It's not exactly taking the best care of a vehicle, considering gas prices and cost of repairs, but how could you not respect a man that devoted?). On the other hand, should this not be the enthusiasm that Christians should take when reporting the Good News of Christ? The pure, raw excitement of His Forgiveness should be motivation for anyone to run non-stop to those who haven't yet heard it. This is not to discredit the emotions of excitement, but it's still prudent to take rest when one can (even if it's merely a sleeping bag on concrete, which I can say from experience isn't at all conducive to proper rest).

Even God took a whole day to rest after creating the Heavens and the Earth and everything in it! On the seventh day (or Sabbath) He took a rest to view the work and saw that it was good. That is the other reason we have the sabbath (the 1st being to give praise to God), to rest from the week and recharge for the week to come.

All throughout the Bible, there are ebbs and flows. Periods of action and periods of rest. Even the entire nation of Israel had these periods. Sometimes they had feasts, others were that of famine. Periods of wealth and periods of enslavement. Times of peace and times of war.

What do yinz (you all, for those of you not from Pittsburgh) think? How do you rest and recharge spiritually?