Hypercritics turn into Hypocrites.
Some Sundays we curl up on the couch after church and take a well deserved break. The way God intended for the sabbath a day that forces us to slow down because we are always going 100mph.
Have you ever been in a situation when you felt that the person in charge wasn’t doing their job? For example, growing up with siblings there may have been times that you felt like your parents weren’t disciplining your sibling and you needed to step in. How did that usually turn out for you? If you want to know how it did for me you are welcome to ask my sister but I can give you her answer right here… NOT WELL.
This was on our way over the Chesapeake bay bridge to pick mike up from the airport. I see sunsets as little signs of God.
This was our trip to Beulah which was a trip my dad grew up taking with his family as a child. It was so special to take a break and explore a small town on a gorgeous lake with my incredible family. This was my last trip to michigan before my cousins wedding before I would find out that he died suddenly. This trip will always be so cherished for me because I had that special time with Alex.
You see as humans we have this struggle with control and trust. That probably doesn’t come as a surprise to many of you. We don’t want to let go of control even though we are exhausted from having to be in control all the time. This is where trust comes in. We can’t let go of the control because we can’t trust that the person will do whatever we were controlling, correctly. Are you following?
We took a weekend trip with mike’s best friend that we consider family. We spent the weekend camping in God’s beautiful creation. We didn’t have cell service the entire time. It was just us, nature, and the wonderful kids we consider our nieces and nephews. I feel this is something God would be so happy we did with our sabbath. We reset our hearts. We focused on all God has given us.
This is exactly what happened between God’s followers and the pharisees. You see the pharisees loved God. They loved God so much but they didn’t trust him as much as they loved. They trusted more in the rules that God gave them. That may sound fine but think about it like this. Rules aren’t always absolute, right? You may have grown up in a household where TV wasn’t allowed… unless your homework was done. You may have not been able to have pop…unless it was the weekend. There are loopholes or contingencies that sometimes change the rules. In this case, lets talk about the Sabbath. For those of you unfamiliar the sabbath is Sunday. A day that God created and added rules to to help us humans slow down and rest. We are creatures that can get very tightly wound and sometimes need to be forces to slow down and look around.
The Sunday after our wedding. We took the day slow. We showed up for our wedding brunch to open gifts and thank all of our out of town guests for coming. We stopped by the house to say goodbye to belle and we took this fun picture of all of us. This was another special memor
Christian law says that there should not be work on the Sabbath. I am sure you all can see how there may be times were things will come up and no matter what you do work is going to need to be done on the sabbath. The sabbath wasnt to get in the way of life. The pharisees were scared though they didn’t want anyone to accidentally break any of the laws which would result in ruining the relationship with Christ for everyone. They decided to protect it. Imagine, you just bought a house. You don’t want people to break in and for the most part others feel the same and respect this. However, You don’t want to take any risks so what do you do? You add extra locks, extra lighting, you put up cameras, you add a fence and all of these are extra deterrents to keep people away from your house. Now walking in your yard may annoy you and depending on where you live could be a problem but it isn’t what you are trying to guard from. You have taken all these extra steps and if someone breaks one you act as though they broke into your house. I am sure many of you would not see walking into someone’s yard as breaking into their house.
This is why the pharisees struggled. THey couldn’t trust God’s law and God to keep his law knowing that there were humans out there who might just accidentally step across that line without knowing it. They had this fear of “YOU are going to ruin it for ALL of US”. Can you imagine how stressful and scary that would be? If your relationship with Christ wasn’t based off of you and him but those around you?
Ill leave you with a question..
Is God for me?
Because if He isn’t then..It’s all up to me. There is no one to rely on.
Easter Sunday with my wonderful nieces & nephew. We are so thankful that we were able to spend such special time with these wonderful young minds. We love them so much.
With all my love,
Willow Ann
