Rest
The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God, knowing that that goodness can reach down to our lowest depths of need.
From: Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
Speak. I’m your servant, ready to listen.
1 Samuel 3.10 (The Message)
(For a short reflection on this verse, visit Disciples’ Walk
To worship God means to forget the self; an extremely difficult, though possible, act. What takes place in a moment of prayer may be described as a shift of the center of living–from self-consciousness to self-surrender.
From: Abrahma Joshua Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom
Perhaps … the Sabbath is mean to be—a disruption. Perhaps God deliberately inserted a day meant for rest—rest—because he had to make it sacred for him if we were to observe it as a day of rest for us. We need a day of rest for our physical and emotional well-being … We need a day of rest for our spiritual well-being, a time to reflect, pray, fast, and talk with God and with our families about God. We need a day of rest to instruct and encourage one another…. We need a day of rest to welcome God’s blessing for ourselves, for our churches, for our communities, and for our nations. We need a day of rest to define ourselves as the people of God … Observing the Sabbath would mean upset and disruption. But that is what God intended it to be – a disruption of those hectic, crazy schedules.
See the full article at – http://www.thehighcalling.org/faith/disruption-sabbath#.VMJGBP54qHc
As the genuine religious impulse becomes dominant, adoration more and more takes charge. “I come to seek God because I need Him,” may be an adequate formula for prayer. “I come to adore His splendour, and fling myself and all that I have at His feet,” is the only possible formula for worship.
From: Evelyn Underhill, Worship, p 9
Anybody can observe the Sabbath but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.
From: Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
Matthew 25.34-36
For a few comments on water as a spiritual practices visit Disciples Walk.
To worship God means to serve him. Basically there are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for Him that He needs to have done – run errands for Him, carry messages for Him, fight on His side, feed His lambs, and so on. The other way is to do things for Him that you need to do – sing songs for Him, tell Him what’s on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in Him.
From: Frederick Buechner
The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.
From: Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath, p 10
I DISCOVERED THAT IF you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life as the one I was living on Rupert Mountain opened up onto extraordinary vistas. Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day’s work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly. . . . If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this:
Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
– From: Now and Then and Listening to Your Life, ( http://www.frederickbuechner.com/content/life-itself-grace )