One of my business partners called with an emergency approaching my Sabbath.  I dove into work and my mind was no longer gearing-up for the Sabbath but stuck in the frenetic tasks of the normal work week.  Can you relate to this perhaps?  I now better understand the tendency for well-intentioned humans to just want to make things easier by being legalistic.  Here’s what I mean:  It’s so much easier for me to implement a policy (at work or at home) to follow.  When the clock strikes 3:00pm on Monday, Dave is off to the Sabbath, regardless of the emergency that might arise at 2:59pm.  Legalism can be a place in which we hide “behind our faith”.  Holding true to a weekly sabbath since April of this year, I now have a greater appreciation for every time Jesus called out the Pharisees and teachers of the law who believed that they were doing the right thing and being holy when in fact they likely were hiding behind laws and legalism to mask how dead their hearts really were in loving God as recited in the shema and cold they were in loving their neighbor.  Avoid legalism at all cost.  It’s easy to conceptually deny legalism.  In practice, it’s more enticing that you might think!

I realized something interesting this week.  When I spend time in solitude with the LORD I experience time slowing down.  It’s as though God stretches my time with Him.  Really.  It’s a unique experience.  Time slows when it’s just God and me.  I don’t think I ever noticed it before.  Try it. Especially if your life is crazy busy with a long list of to-dos and activities and not enough time in the day, give it a shot and make time in solitude with the LORD.  Just unplug.  First for fifteen minutes, then stretch it as you feel led.  Start small.  You can afford fifteen minutes.  And just alone in the quiet, sit there with God.  Feel Him smiling at you.  You just smile back.

We live in a beautiful place with nature around us.  Hawaii is a very special place.  It’s when I see, hear, and smell nature that I feel nearer to God.  His handy work is all around us.  For me, I make it a point to observe and be in nature.  It’s how I experience God’s nearness.  Won’t you try it?  Especially if you’re normal routine is to get up for work, get ready, and head straight into an office where you’ll be for hours until the sun has gone down or maybe you sit in traffic. And the routine repeats.  Break your routine and go out and be in God’s creation.  Try it.