Have I mentioned how much I love living in Medina? I love being your pastor and exploring your town that’s quickly becoming mine. Yet moving is not without it’s difficulties.

We are still figuring out where things go, what color to paint the walls, and buying some new furniture to fit our new space. Some of these pieces need to be assembled.

We bought this new piece, a little hutch to put the kids art supplies and games in. It all was going smoothly in the assembly… until the table top. This is a cam-lock-and-nut system, you know the mainstay of IKEA’s product line for as long as I can remember.

The cam nuts are installed where they need to be and the dows are in correct and this table top should just sit right down on top. But it doesn’t. When one side goes in, the other side pops out. A dow isn’t lining up with the corresponding hole. Nothing I do works. I push. I pull. I hammer. I console and curse with words. I start to feel my frustration rising. I’m about to go nuclear, I’m so frustrated.

I ask Kate to help. So we both take the table top off and put it on again, thinking that with two people we could line up the ends, and fit the sides in securely without popping out. This doesn’t work. We try five or six times, and then she says we should give up. But I’m going to keep working. I’m going to force this. I won’t be defeated by this stupid table. This should work, there’s not reason it should!

After ten more tries, I see how late it is and call it quits. I am fed up and I leave the table top resting on top of the unit and I go to bed.

In the morning, I walk out and am about to curse the table when… wait, that can’t be right. The table has settled into place over night. The table is perfectly flat and all the cams are lined up with the cam nuts. The dow rods can’t be seen. The table top is in place.

What a relief!

I fasten it down and tighten what needs to be tightened and it’s done! What was a frustrating 30 minutes was solved by doing nothing. Solved by giving up and going to bed. Who would have thought?

As I prepared my breakfast, I looked out of my kitchen window and noticed our little pond in the backyard. The pond was still and like a mirror to the sky. It made me think that in the rush of our day, it’s good to take time to be still. In doing so, we just might reflect heaven.

Work and rest. Don’t force what might just need to settle.

Sabbath is a command. In our culture that worships busyness, Sabbath is a revolutionary and radical concept. You are not the stuff you buy, the work you do, or the money in your bank account.

You are a Child of God, a human being not a human doing. Take a day to just BE. Be with your family. Be in prayer. Delight in the Sabbath.

Honor the Sabbath. That list of to-do’s is only going to get longer, but that nap isn’t going to take itself.

 If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the Sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the Lord,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
–Isaiah 58:13-14-