My email program went haywire recently, and I finally called our computer guru to do his wizardry. Other people’s servers had been sending emails to me but weren’t getting a message back that my server had received them. So they kept sending them over again. Likewise, the same thing was happening with my emails going out, in some cases flooding the receivers with dozens of copies! My IT person discovered that I had two firewalls in a “death grip” – battling each other for top possession of the same files – so my server was too busy internally to respond to anything outside of itself.

My mind does that sometimes, too. It gets so enmeshed in going over some past interaction or some dreaded future possibility that it cannot respond at all, whether giving or receiving. I suppose that’s another reason to honor Sabbath time: to let God clear out the self-entangled inner circuits that keep us from being present to others and even to God.

The Sabbath is the heart of the entire Jewish Torah. I know it is meant to be a big part of a Christian’s life, too. As a Type A, over-involved personality, I confess it’s the toughest of God’s life-giving laws to observe. Yet we all need to “reboot” our minds and hearts. It’s a good thing God keeps teaching us, giving us opportunities to rest, to learn, and to grow.

Your partner in ministry,

Betsy Schwarzentraub