The Sabbath Year

One of my favorite passages in Scripture is Leviticus 25. Yes. That’s right. I said Leviticus- also considered to be one of the ‘boring’ books in the Bible because it’s a list of rules. But they are rules that God gave the Israelites when establishing a nation. Just think about it for a minute. If GOD, the Sovereign God who knows us inwardly and outwardly and created each of us, if He gave us suggestions on how to live, don’t you think they might be helpful? Or handy?

Leviticus 25 is all about The Sabbath Year. Here is some of it.

“ ¹ The LORD said to Moses at Mount Sinai, ² “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD. ³ For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. ⁴ But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. ⁵Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. ⁶ Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, ⁷ as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.”

¹⁸ “‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. ¹⁹ Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. ²⁰ You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?” ²¹ I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. ²² While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

 ²³ “‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. ²⁴ Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.”

I have a point to sharing this passage. Never fear. 

It is fairly common knowledge that the Bible has as one it’s commandments, “Honor the Sabbath by keeping it holy.” That’s once a week aka after 6 days of work, we need to rest and glorify God through our rest. College students have a hard time honoring this commandment. And perhaps it’s not just a college thing and perhaps it isn’t even a personal sin but a societal sin as well. We do not rest when we should. And every so often we all have mental breakdowns and panics in consequence of our sin.

But God commanded more than that. Not just every seventh day but every seventh year we are supposed to rest. In a community where agriculture was how people survived, God commanded them to stop harvesting their fields every seven years. To me this makes sense. You will deplete the nutrients in a field quickly and your crops won’t be as fruitful if you continually push your land to produce more (hence now why people always dump fertilizers on the ground). But this passage doesn’t talk just about harvests. It talks about debts, loans, homes, animals, and family. In other words, it addresses most aspects of life.

Every seven years we are supposed to take a Sabbath year. One year where we calm ourselves down and honor God by making sure we get rest. I have no idea what that would look like nor do I think our society quite understands. The best examples in our society are sabbatical years that professors, professionals and missionaries take to regroup and recover.

And I haven’t even talked about the Jubilee year where we are supposed to free all debts, slaves and commitments after every 7 sets of 7 years (aka every 50^th year).

Hmm. Interesting.

It is also interesting to know this random tidbit of my life: This past year was the hardest and most difficult year for me to get through. I had a lot of family problems, a lot of friendships end, and a lot of inward problems that I needed to deal with.

But I wasn’t the only one. I know many people who had it rough. From dealing with alcoholism, to eating disorders, to emotional and mental instability, to committing terrible crimes, to needing to find a new job or place to live. This year sucked for many of us a lot more than past years have. And not just in what we were struggling with but our temptations, our emotional handlings of these temptations and with life in general.

Why?

I believe it was because it was supposed to be my Sabbath year. I was 21 turning 22. So were my friends. Or the others were a multiple of 7 in age, ironically enough. We were burnt out and Satan knew that. He attacks when we are most vulnerable and he tried doing it in full force.

My God is my protector, however, and He rescues me even though I was not resting. Although I was emotionally exhausted, physically exhausted and my brain hurt, God was willing to be my protector and He was rescuing my friends.

What would it have looked like if I had made this year my Sabbath Year? What would it look like if as a community we had a Sabbath Year? How can we go about living life so that next time, I will honor God and look to Him for my rest and my protection?

Reactions towards the 'wicked'

One can learn so much about their friends in how they react to news. For example, this Sunday was when the nation learned that Osama bin Laden died. To be honest when I first heard I was so tired that I didn't care but I passed it on to my friends so that they were aware because I figured it was important. 

I was not expecting what happened though. Riots outside of my window? Cheering and spontaneous parades on Main Street? USA chants every night in the bars? Since when did our nation care?

People took so much pleasure in the death of one man. Yes, he was responsible for terrible crimes. Yes, it appeared that he was not repentant for the acts of Sept 11. Yes, our government needs to protect its people. But he was still a man with a soul. I worry about how people in the Middle East will react to our response to this news. We call ourselves a "Christian nation" (although I would argue that we are not) yet as a people we do not share the grace that our God shares. What impact will this have in our relations with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq?

On a smaller, more day-to-day scale, where do we act without compassion and grace towards the wicked? One example I've noticed is how we treat criminals. Do we act with grace and wisdom in trying to help them and pray for a change in heart? No. More often than not, I see the opposite. For example, people in my classes get together every week to watch the show 'To Catch a Predator' so they can make fun of each man that appears on the show and so they can feel better about their own lives. They get an ego boost because they aren't 'as bad as that guy.'

This breaks my heart on so many levels. Where do we find justice in comparing ourselves to others when we all have different stories and personalities and problems? No one is good, not one. Through the grace of God, we can be forgiven and freed from our sin but not a single person deserves it. It hurts a lot hearing people make fun of rapists or murderers or felons of any sort when they have not met or gotten to know one. So much systemic injustice and brokenness exists in societies that end up causing these crimes to happen and complicate things. 

If there has been one lesson that I have learned this year, we need to learn how to forgive the most heart-breaking and disappointing crimes otherwise nothing will get restored. And the only way to truly forgive someone is by leaning on God and asking him to change YOUR heart and not just the "wicked's" for we all are wicked. 

We should not rejoice in another human's demise but we should rejoice when another has a change of heart. Ezekiel 33:11 says, ‘...As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live....' Let this be our stance and motto as a nation instead.  

Testimony Part 1: Letting Go of Good Things

Family is dynamic. Everyone always says that their family is crazy, probably because of all the stuff that happens in their clan because family is so fluid. Family can change; it can grow with marriage and babies or get smaller with deaths or separations. This mother that I nannied for once went from an abusive relationship with a large extended family to being a single mother with a child and no support behind her. The father was abusive and the grandmother was in denial about the situation and the rest of the relatives just could not believe it. Basically, she lost her family so she could protect her child.

This is an area where I have struggled since high school. Could I leave my family behind if God called me to leave? Luke 9:61-62 says "Still another says, 'I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-bye to my family.' Jesus replied, 'No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.' "

I love my family and having family is a great gift from God. Although my family doesn't hug each other or say it explicitly, we love each other and have supported each other in extremely difficult times. (More to come about that maybe at a later date.) I have very old parents though and their health hasn't been the best so helping them and caring for my mother when she gets severely low sugar is something that I do. Because of this, I did not want to move far away but I wanted to stay after I graduated to be able to help.

Now you might say, "aww, you're such a good daughter" but please don't think like that. Just because actions seem right does not mean that motivations are in par with what God desires. In the passage above, if that man truly loved Christ and his looking back towards his family was centered around what God wanted him to do, that would be fine. But Christ knew that man's reservations and fears about leaving and knew that his heart was not fully committed to Christ's service yet.

If my motivation for looking for jobs near my home was because I knew God was calling me to stay then that would be alright. However, I was motivated by fear. I did not want to not be around if something happened. I was afraid of ultimately losing my mother and missing out on good times. But I needed to let my family go. Yes, family is important. Friends are important. But at what point do they begin to become an idol?

Over winter, I struggled so much with this concept that I think I think I ended up crying daily. (It didn't help that I was severely lonely and depressed from my SAD.) I knew that I needed to let go of my family and stop idolizing it in order for God to let me truly enjoy my family. This concept may not make sense to some. I've heard it referred to in terms of dating relationships though: if you so desperately want to be in a certain relationship because you like it (which isn't a bad thing), but if you would be willing to ignore God's plan due to that relationship, that is a bad relationship to be in; but if you are willing to give up that relationship if God told you to, your motivations are still God-seeking and that relationship isn't an idol. It sounds backwards, I know and until you are put in a situation like that, I don't think many people will understand what I'm trying to say.

I have struggled with knowing my ill-placed motivations. It's not an easy subject but since high school I have consciously struggled with battling between where God wants me to go and with the fact that I strongly desire to go back home.

This past winter, I was finally able to release my family to God. Now that I have, it's been amazing because God has been answering my prayers. He does want me to have my parent's semi-close to me in my post-graduated life but He wanted me to trust Him with it. Job opportunities have been slowly opening themselves up for this region and God has been blessing me for trusting. I'm still struggling with figuring out the balance but I know that I am free from that sin and it feels like a burden has been lifted.

So now I ask the 6-ish of you that actually read this blog to reflect on your own life: what area is burdening you that only you know your motivations are wrong? Is it school? or church activities? or music? Or is it relationships with others?

PS- I'm sorry this post is so long. I talk a lot.

An Awkward Blog Update

I have two blogs.

This blog. And my awkward blog. But all of you who have found this blog should already know about the awkward blog. That’s my famous one.

I haven’t posted any of my awkward stories though since December. Have awkward stories happened to me? Yes, of course. I had a strange man follow me from when I walked out of my dorm to Trabant the other day. He originally wasn’t walking in the same direction that I was headed either but he turned around when I passed him.  But nothing came of it so I can’t write about it.

But there have been no solid stories in a while. I like to think it’s because I’m getting skilled at dealing with them however that would be a complete lie- I’m awkward. I really think really it’s mainly due to two reasons. 

1. I haven’t been out that much in places where I can create stories. Between work, family, shyness and sickness, I just haven’t been places this year where the awkward can creep on me.
2. A lot of my stories that are my truly awkward stories I can’t write up because of privacy issues. Aka some of my creepers have found my blog and read it or some of you made me feel super awkward but I won’t tell you or write about it because I don’t want you knowing.

But do not fear. I’m still very awkward at heart. And I’m sure more stories will come.

Testimony and Themes and Whatnot

I just wrote out my testimony again. I haven't updated it in 3 years. So much has changed since then, especially within this past year so I figured it needed to be done. I wrote it out and am still writing and so far it's taking up over 9 pages in my journal.

There are basic themes though that keep getting repeated.
1. God prepares us for what is to come. It's almost ironic how much God has prepared me to go through some of the situations I have faced.
2. Friendships/any type of relationship (parent-to-child, coworker, mentor/mentee, friends, bf/gf, etc) should never be idolized. While God said, "It is not good for man to be alone," first and foremost our focus must be on God. When our focus leaves God, that's when problems occur. I've lost many friends by losing focus and thinking that I know best. I've idolized friends and I've been through bouts of loneliness. Having no friends (or not trusting anyone to be a friend) is just as bad as idolizing a relationship.
3. Letting go of painful situations is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Learning to forgive is part of the letting go process. Forgiveness doesn't come if anger has built walls around your heart.
4. Learning to forgive is extraordinarily difficult.
5. Trust goes against everything that society tells you to do.
6. The worst feeling in the world is feeling like you are a burden when your spirit is deeply hurting.
7. Giving of oneself is the best gift you could do for yourself.
8. I was a nerd in high school. And the first two years of college. Then I burned out.
9. "But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me." -Micah 7:7. My God will hear me. That is a promise.
10. "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" -Galatians 5:6b. If you ever doubt a rule or a command or what you should do, recite this verse and ask yourself deep down is it faith being expressed in love or is it rebellion/anger/sadness/doubt?

I might type up some of my testimony and share it on here. Not all of it. But maybe some parts. We shall see.