So I've wrapped up ten straight days of work after a four month sabbatical from my work on campus. Looking back at the fall, things started off fairly atrocious but they were in stable, if not spectacular, condition when I left.
I'm delighted to report after ten days back that things in our community have improved greatly in my absence. At points in my life this would have been somewhat disheartening. Who doesn't like to feel like the world would stop if they disappeared?
But for this season (today, at any rate), I'm celebrating my superfluous-ness. This was, after all, the original point of rest in the Scriptures.
The commandment to take "sabbath" in the Old Testament was radical in its context. In an agrarian society, when the crops need to be planted, you plant. When they need to be picked, you pick.
Taking a day off no matter what stage the crops were in was reckless. The command to rest on the seventh day was the command to take a day off and trust the Lord with the results. It was to be a reckless rest of faith. God was to be their provider. This was a weekly reminder of his sovereign provision for them.
And so as I return to this InterVarsity community that I am certain that God has called me to serve, it is great news to me that I am not as important as I often like to think that I am. This is God's work. He was here long before I got here and will continue to be here long after I leave.
This relieves me of thinking of myself too highly, as too important or central. And this is the only way I can be free of the tyranny of a burden that is too great for me to bear. The weight of the ministry is not on me. It is on God.
I am not as important as I like to think that I am. Instead, I am more deeply loved than I ever hoped or imagined.
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