Daily Office - Discovering the Rhythm of Sabbath Pt. 6*

1) Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes) 

2) Scripture Reading—Matthew 13:31-33

            He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

            He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

3) Devotional

            In these two parables describing how the kingdom of God works much like a seed, we hear Jesus calling us to slow down and take a longer view of our lives.

            . . . we can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole machine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms that govern how life grows . . . seasons and sunsets and great movements of seas and stars . . . We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.

To surrender to the rhythms of seasons and flowerings and dormancies is to savor the secret of life itself.

Many scientists believe we are “hard-wired” like this, to live in rhythmic awareness, to be in and then step out, to be engrossed and then detached, to work and then to rest. It follows then that the commandment to remember the Sabbath is not a burdensome requirement from some law-giving deity—“You ought, you’d better, you must”—but rather a remembrance of a law that is firmly embedded in the fabric of nature. It is a reminder of how things really are, the rhythmic dance to which we unavoidably belong.⁶²

—Wayne Mueller 

4) Question to Consider

How do the rhythms you see in nature (e.g., spring, summer, fall, winter, day, night) speak to you about the kind of rhythms you desire for your own life?

5) Prayer

LORD, I thank you that you are working even when I am sleeping. Teach me to respect the built-in rhythms of life and to live from a place of deep rest in you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

*From "Begin the Journey with the Daily Office" by Pete Scazzero