Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. Matthew 11:28 (MSG)

Take Time To Be Human – The Journey Series – Part 6

Go to PART 1  |  PART 2  |  PART 3  |  PART 4  |  PART 5  |  PART 6  |  PART 7

I grew up in a small country town called Mudgee, where many of my friends came from farming families. Every now and then, I would hear talk of farmers rotating their fields. Resting one. Not actually using it for a season. As I got older and asked questions about it, I learned that to recalibrate the soil, it needed to rest every few years. This replenished the soils chemical composition after a crop, giving it time to restore minerals depleted by previous planting, growth, and harvesting. It’s called letting the land lie “fallow.”

We don’t hear this much anymore. The demands on our farmers are forcing them to use tired and nutrient-starved soil to grow our produce. The land is being sprayed with more chemicals and used more often. Which may give a more generous harvest, but the quality of our food and soil is suffering. These days, to get the amount of nutrients you used to get out of a single plate of spinach, you have to eat FORTY plates of spinach. Yep. Google it.

And nobody likes spinach that much.

Exodus and Leviticus talk about letting the land lie fallow. Every seven years, the land was to be given a Sabbath. A year of rest. Just like how the Jewish community observes the Sabbath one out of every seven days.

It’s about creating space in our lives for contemplation, reflection, renewal, restoration, thought, prayer, family… It’s about resisting the endless pull of consumerism and practising being content, still and enough. Walter Bruggeman writes incredibly on this in his book, “Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now.” He writes:

“We used to sing the hymn “Take Time to Be Holy.” But perhaps we should be singing, “Take time to be human.” Or finally, “Take time.” Sabbath is taking time… time to be holy… time to be human.”

And…

“That divine rest on the seventh day of creation has made clear (a) that YHWH is not a workaholic, (b) that YHWH is not anxious about the full functioning of creation, and (c) that the well-being of creation does not depend on endless work.”

Why am I talking about this in a series on the journey of salvation and healing?

Salvation, healing, forgiveness, faith, hope… these are not things that we check off on a list. They don’t happen automatically. We can’t trade for them or buy them. They can only happen as we live our lives AND as we create space for them. As we talked about a few days ago, as they say in recovery programs, ‘Wherever you go, there you are.” Do you want to heal? Do you want to be able to forgive? Do you want forgiveness? Restoration? To be hopeful? Do you want to live a life of faith where questions are not a threat, and uncertainty is not seen as weakness?

Then you have to go there. You need to create space for it. You must learn how to live into these areas. Trial and error. Open your heart up to God and others… even yourself.

Especially yourself.

And Sabbath. Let the land of your heart, hands, and mind, lie fallow. Let the God of the Sabbath restore you and awaken you to the wonder and the healing and salvation that is taking place all around you. And if you’ll let it, within you too.

We must say NO to the pervasive culture of consumerism, and say YES to community, love and faith. Take time to be holy AND human. Take time to pray and wonder and rest. Heal. Jump off the treadmill, stop ignoring your exhaustion, stop being too busy to deal with the aches in your life…

My life, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this too, got to a point like our modern day spinach had. I was not nutrient rich. I was becoming hollow. I looked the same, I almost sounded the same. But there was not much beneath the surface. My heart, spirit, and body had been used up. Was it my fault? Could I place blame elsewhere? Yes and yes. But healing only began when I took responsibility for the condition of my life. And surrendered it to the Divine.

Salvation and all that pertains to God is not a switch that gets flicked, and suddenly, everything is different. Rather, it’s a seed that gets planted. Watered. Grown. Harvested. Planted. Watered…

Pay attention to the soil.

Go to An Endless Pilgrimage – The Journey Series – Part 7

Written by Liz Milani

Over to you. What seeds need planting and watering for you? Leave us a comment below.

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