Over the centuries, the Catholic Church has had feast days (with Mass) to celebrate so many saints and significant events. Saint Nicholas’s Day on December 6 celebrates the generosity of an ancient Christian bishop. Epiphany on January 6 celebrates the Magis’ visit in Bethlehem and Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River. The feast of Elizabeth Ann Seton celebrates the first native-born American saint.

The Church even celebrates a Mass for the Christ Child on December 25. Three days later, it celebrates Holy Innocents’ Day or the Children’s Mass to commemorate the slaughter of thousands of baby boys by Herod, who hoped to rid the land of a rival to his throne. (See Matt 2.)

Evil men have always struck at the vulnerability of innocent lives. The murder rampage in the Sandy Hill Elementary School was just another occasion. God was not to blame for causing the slaughter. He was not to blame even for letting it happen. He refuses to force people to follow His instructions for living well. This world is headed for Hell because people demand to live apart from God’s goodness and love.

Neither are the weapons evil people use to blame for killing. Hitler used gas chambers; Genghis Khan and his men used recurved bows; Herod’s men used spears.

Just as the heroes of old sagas wielded swords to battle their monster enemies, we need to banish gun control so today’s heroes can protect today’s innocents from the predations of today’s monsters. I like the idea of armed guards or police officers patrolling school corridors or even Israel’s practice of arming teachers and training them to protect their students.

It is today’s monsters that need to be forcefully banned – executed on the spot with lethal injections of lead in order to stop them before they kill, not afterward. Disarming honest citizens will make things less safe for today’s innocents.

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. (John 3:8 )

As I took another opportunity last weekend to blow leaves from my yard onto a huge compost pile, I noticed a few interesting phenomena.

-       It’s individual leaves that get blown – even if many are blown together.

-       Big leaves get blown more easily than smaller ones.

-       Wet leaves clump together and are harder to move.

-       Leaves stuck in the grass need to be plucked away before they will move.

What does this mean?

-       The wind of the Spirit comes into our lives, wishing to move us in directions as God wills.

-       The Spirit moves us individually – even when He moves many of us along at once.

-       Those of us with hearts big toward the things of God are moved more easily.

-       Individuals clumped together, such as in families, are harder to move than single individuals.

-       When we cling to things in our environments, we resist being moved by the Spirit.

Recommendations:

-       Paul told the Corinthians to open wide their hearts toward him and his words as he spoke from God.

-       Prepare your families so that when God’s Wind blows, you all are able to move with Him. (Military families do it all the time.)

-       Hold loosely to the things of the world around you so you can be easily moved by the Spirit.

 

Is God’s Spirit active in your life, moving you from one task for His kingdom to another?

Are you moving alongside other people of God to do His will together?

Are you holding on to anything that keeps the Spirit from moving you?

Does holding tightly to many relationships keep all of you from moving freely as God wills?

I waited three days for the rains to stop so the sun could dry the leaves that blanketed the back yard. Instead, the uncooperative weather brought a wet snow and I decided the job had to be done. Bundled warmly in a few layers of clothing, a winter cap, and cloth gloves, I used a leaf-blower to move leaves heavy with rain. Some were laden by clumps of wet snow.

Photo by Leping Zha

It wasn’t the rain dripping on my cap from the leaves still on the tree that sent me inside or the drudgery of the task. It was the biting cold of water-soaked gloves. Instead of a bath anticipated to remove the sweat of labor, I took a hot bath to warm up.

 

They were hounded by the king’s government, berated by the established church, scorned by society, hated for their piety by those who preferred carnal pursuits. Believing God said, “Come out from them and be separate,” they left England and settled in Holland. Hearing God’s call to be “strangers and pilgrims on the Earth,” they braved the rigors of the New World to create a place where their descendents could worship in peace and freedom. Instead of landing in Virginia as planned, they were blown by a storm north to New England where half their number died the first winter of “general sickness”. But they held fast to their faith in God and His Word. 

This novel tells the story of a young man employed by a powerful lord to infiltrate the Separatists and hunt down the location of Elder William Brewster. That preacher had printed a sermon that annoyed James I, who wanted his head.

Gilbert Winslow spurned his studies for Anglican priesthood in order to find success with Lord North and to win the hand of his lovely daughter, Cicely. He turned his charm on pretty Humility Cooper, the Separatists’ link with Brewster, and made her fall in love with him.

When the two of them go to fetch the preacher for the trip on the Mayflower, two events created an estrangement between them. A rival for Cicely’s hand revealed Gilbert’s treachery and Gilbert killed the man to prevent Brewster’s capture. Wounded in the sword fight, Gilbert was taken onto the Mayflower and became not only a wanted man but also a valuable asset to the colony. Then things got complicated.

The author impressed me with the Pilgrim’s trust in God and His word. I can foresee the Church’s need for such faith in coming years.

On the other hand, keeping to the traditions and beliefs of romance novels, he argued that Humility could not make a loving marriage with another Pilgrim because she was still in love with Gilbert. I disagree with that idea.

I recommend this first story in the author’s House of Winslow series for its illustration of faith in the midst of persecution, its exposition of a man’s honorable character, and the twists and turns of its romantic arc.

 

Are your beliefs more in line with society’s beliefs and expectations or with God’s as spelled out in His Word?

Do your actions show adherence to God’s Truth despite the trouble it makes for you?

Are you ready to oppose even the government if it threatens your freedom as a follower of God?

 

Someone left Obama propaganda on my doorstep…twice. I crumbled it, dropped it, and left it as a signal to not waste their time again. Then I noticed one brochure said, “We’ve come too far to turn back now.” (Reminded me of a song from the seventies.)

I decided I had to agree.  It would be like expecting an atheist to repent (turn back) from refusing to acknowledge God’s love and sovereignty. Obama is too entrenched in his belief that the government must be the instrument to save our economy and must force health care on everyone.

Again, I agree. It’s too late to turn back our country’s forward motion…down the precipice into economic chaos. Even the Republicans continue the socialist programs started as far back as the New Deal. No one dares reverse the trend started with Social Security and continued with bailing out giant companies that made financially fatal mistakes. (Or was it the unions who made the mistake of forcing the companies to bend to fatal demands?)

This country has taken the economy too far down hill and will suffer one way or another. Readers may complain that to repeal Social Security, Obamacare, welfare, and Medicare would mean the death of the old, the disabled, the poor, and the very young. The economic collapse I expect will force the government to cut costs by itself eliminating the old, the disabled, and the poor. It already allows for disposal of the very young through abortion. The Darwinian process that ensures the survival of the fit will work one way or another.

I can hear my brother saying our mother would be one of the first to go. Elderly, in diminishing health, and unable to survive without help in the home, I expect that would be true…either way. I would mourn her death. I used to be content with the belief our father had provided for her through retirement pension and income from investments. My brother says that isn’t so. She must rely on government financial assistance.

That is the problem with all these socialist government programs. People relied on the government to provide for their futures as it took from their incomes (Social Security and Medicare taxes) and from other people’s incomes (taxes used for welfare). Instead, they should have done what I thought Dad had done; they should have invested capital so that they could earn substantial incomes when they could not work whether through retirement or disability.

The only way I can see for our economy to turn around is for the 99% to join the 1% in investing and earning livable incomes honestly. The only way I can see for our government to turn around is for the people to support candidates who seek to return to Constituionally-limited government.

 

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matt 11:28-30)

Times for Sabbath Rest

Yahweh commanded that one day out of seven, His people were to stop working – stop laboring to increase their wealth. Instead they were to rest, worship Him, and seek to know Him and learn His ways of doing things. A hard-driven person, anxious to get ahead by working all the time (the essence of greed), would be forced to stop and trust Yahweh for what is needed.

Yahweh also commanded His people to spend six years sowing and reaping fields of grain, tending trees and vineyards and harvesting their fruits. However, every seventh year, they were to let fields lie fallow and leave trees and vineyards unpruned. They were to allow poor people to reap whatever grew on its own or fell from branches.

Instead, people were to worship Yahweh and seek Him for better ways to produce wealth. Again, people had to trust that Yahweh’s provision would last until the next harvest.

People were varied in talents, in wisdom, in motivation and opportunities to succeed. Some would prosper well and grow rich while others would grow poor and fall into debt. Those who had loaned money so the poor could survive were to forgive those debts after seven years. This took generosity (the nemesis of greed) on the part of the rich. Such generosity grew out of trust in Yahweh’s provision.

Finally, some people did so poorly they fell deeply into debt. The only way they could pay off what they owed was to sell their farms (their capital) and themselves and their family members (their labor) to rich people, who already knew how to profitably use both. This would have the effect of concentrating the control of capital and labor into the hands of the rich and powerful few (the greedy 1%?). These could only grow more rich and powerful.

Yahweh provided a way to break up this unjust concentration of capital. Every year that followed the seventh seventh-year sabbatical – the fiftieth – the rich landowners were to release the farms they controlled back to the original family owners. The rich who employed bondservants were to release them to work their own land for themselves. This gave the next generation of the poor opportunities to apply their own labor to their own capital and to earn their own wealth.

This required the rich to put faith in Yahweh’s provision and generously release what had previously made them wealthy. It required the newly-released bondservants to put faith in Yahweh to guide and enable them in this renewed venture.

 Applying Sabbath Laws in Today’s Economy

To apply Yahweh’s sabbath day laws to today’s economy would be relatively easy. Most Americans enjoy two days off from work either on Saturday and Sunday – the traditional Sabbaths – or during the mid-week. Each individual can look at his circumstances and decide with his family which day is the best to rest, worship, and seek to know God and His ways. The only thing really required is that they “believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (Heb 11:6)

Some business owners might shut down operations to give workers opportunities for sabbath days. This already happens in factories that shut down for the weekend. Service-oriented companies, however, need to stay open /7, if not 24/. They can give weekend workers mid-week days off and still not violate their sabbath.

Applying the law of the sabbatical year would be more difficult, especially for businesses. For individual workers, taking a sabbatical would require saving during the other six years or having non-labor sources of income. This would require frugal spending, saving to make purchases rather than using consumer debt, and investing in business, i.e. capitalism.

Businesses would have to either shut down operations every seventh year or they would have to rotate shut-downs through their various divisions. Money-lending businesses would have to also forgive all seven-year-old debts owed to them.

Finally, Jubilee customs would have rich capitalists turning over to poor people the means to also earn wealth. As stated elsewhere, this would bring more economic justice than the government taxing (stealing from) the rich and giving to the poor.  Again, faith in God and His ways would enable the process.

 Sabbath Rest Based on Faith

In the end, faith in the goodness and love of God is the foundation of sabbath rest. The Israelites who came out of bondage in Egypt had been enslaved for at least four hundred years. They were browbeaten, demoralized, easily discouraged. Given the promise of “a land flowing with milk and honey,” they couldn’t handle the brief discomfort of abiding in the Wilderness. They complained and rebelled against Yahweh’s commands. Of the twelve spies that went up into Canaan, ten brought back reports of giant people as well as huge harvests. Only Joshua and Caleb returned and declared that Yahweh would help them if only Israel would obey and go up to take the land. Israel didn’t and was condemned to wander in the Wilderness until all of that generation had died. They never entered the rest that flowed from faith in Yahweh. Yet, God offers daily opportunities to enter His rest – the working out of His promises. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Heb 4:7) The author of Hebrews exhorts all to trust and obey God and so enter His rest.

 My Own Experience

I recently entered into a situation that tests my faith and that of my family. My older son is in his last year of college and requires some thousands of dollars to avoid dropping out for the year. I have a growing appreciation (from God’s Word and economic principles) of reasons to avoid further debt and government involvement and a perceived need for my son to work for his education and otherwise rely on God’s provision. I therefore refused to sign a promissory note for student loans.

I made this choice with some fear. I expected unpleasant objections from other family members and resentment from a son forced to leave off his studies and come home.

I placed my faith in God – in what I believe his Word commands and what I believe He was guiding me to do. My son and I await results from his efforts to seek residence and employment off-campus.

I “believe that [God] exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” However unpleasant it may turn out, I believe He will “work for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28)

Questions

What can you do today that shows your faith in God and His provision? WWJHYD – What would Jesus have you do?

How could you position your finances to enable obeying Yahweh’s laws and reaping His provisions and blessings?

Francine Rivers has written the kind of novel I enjoy reading, one that portrays the thoughts and motivations of a wide array of characters over some issue. In The Atonement Child, the issue is abortion.

Dynah Carey, a young woman at a Christian college, is raped by an unknown assailant and becomes pregnant. The author shows how various people in her life pressure her about having an abortion:

On the Do-It Side

• Dynah’s Christian father is near to retiring and doesn’t want to take on the burden of a daughter raising a child of rape.
• Dynah’s Christian mother still suffers anguish over her own abortion yet doesn’t want to cross her husband…at first.
• Dynah’s Christian college fiancé says Dynah’s purity was spoiled by the rape. He doesn’t want his reputation at the college sullied by her pregnancy.
• Dynah’s Christian roommate says a child of rape is an abomination. What if the man was of another race? What if he had AIDS? What if…several things?
• The college dean doesn’t condone abortion but cannot allow an unwed mother to continue as a student. He places a high value on the promising career of her fiancé.
• For the director of an abortion clinic, abortions are big business, supported by the government. The Supreme Court has declared women would be traumatized by full disclosure of information about procedures, results, and after-effects. She forces a caring counselor to give vague information to girls with questions and to pull them through the procedures.
• The abortionist doctor doesn’t want women to suffer from the bad medical procedures that killed his sister. He also lives well and has paid off huge medical school loans with the money earned. However, he struggles emotionally over the deaths of the babies.
• The doctor’s wife questions within herself the rightness of the doctor’s work but refuses to challenge his decisions.

On the Don’t-Do-It Side

• Dynah’s grandmother remembers the decades of personal anguish and marital stress over her own life-saving abortion. She discusses with friends research linking interrupted pregnancies to breast cancer.
• Fiancé’s roommate is the story hero. He doesn’t want Dynah harmed emotionally by the abortion. He grieves over his sex partner’s abortion from his teen years. He stands by Dynah through her decisions to keep the baby, to avoid suicide, and to leave her fiancé and school.

Others

• Clinic counselor is a young woman that cares about the girls and women who come in asking questions. She was reprimanded for giving full disclosure that sent some away.
• Church pastor was being sued over the suicide of a young woman he had been counseling. He avoids giving Dynah biblical advice or his moral opinion. She leaves unhelped.
• Loving, comforting God in a still, small voice offers Dynah assurances of love and deliverance. He calls her to separate herself from the urgings of the people around her and promises to provide for her and the child.
• Dynah: Raised by anti-abortion parents and protected in home school, she’s confused by all the people urging her to get rid of the problem. She’s troubled enough to barely avoid suicide and compliant enough to barely avoid abortion. She just couldn’t follow through with either. She finally leaves home, finds a place to live and work and wait on God’s provision, then returns in God’s time to help the abortionist find peace and to give birth.

This novel speaks more to the confusion women feel before having abortions and their anguish after one than to the issues of choice or whether the fetus is worthy of life. It shows how a woman who’s been raped can handle that anguish and choose to bring a resulting child to birth. The author shows the value of trust in the God of all comforts and the Lord Who Provides.

By comparison, the story disdains abortions for lesser reasons of convenience, career and economics, or shame of pregnancy imposed by society.

Can you believe God has a better, more compassionate, way to end a pregnancy – through birth?

Can you believe He will stand with a woman during one of the most vulnerable times of her life? 

 

In the laws Moses created for the new nation of Israel, he told them to count off six years of harvests then take a seventh-year sabbatical. Through the prophet Yahweh promised to provide three years of abundance. “You may ask, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?’ I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. 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.” (Lev 25:20-22) With all that abundance, Yahweh also wants us to learn frugal spending, savings, giving, and trust.

Frugal spending is contrary to the spirit of American consumerism espoused by Henry Ford. He believed that if manufacturers produced greater numbers of inexpensive (cheap?) products then greater numbers of lower-income people would buy, more workers could be hired and paid and would have more money with which to buy greater numbers of products.

There is truth in this – up to a point. It works if employers don’t greedily hold down wages paid to their workers, if workers don’t greedily bleed their employers through wage demands and other benefits, if the government doesn’t greedily tax the income of the workers and their employers then usurp God’s place by giving vast amounts of money to people who don’t earn for themselves.

Consumerism also doesn’t work when people outspend their incomes for unworthwhile products and entertainments. Consumer debt helps people buy more expensive, long-term products: refrigerators, automobiles, houses. Excessive debt leads to bankruptcies and dampens the economy. The government’s ultra-excessive debt is a real problem for today’s economy.

The trunk of the problem tree is greed, the excessive desire to have and enjoy. The root of the tree is failure to trust in the provision of the Lord Who Provides.

More than consumerism powers the economy, personal savings redeems it. Money in the bank not only provides for the consumer during tough economic times, it also provides funds for investments and long-term economic growth – both personal and national. It also follows God’s instructions for economic security.

The axe that strikes at the tree of greed and the root of unbelief in Yahweh’s provision is generous giving. In his book, Enemies of the Heart, Andy Stanley wrote that “Generosity allows us to partner with God as he shows himself in tangible ways to the world around us.” Such generosity makes possible food banks, church benevolence funds, and faith-based organizations such as Catholic Charities.

These organizations rely on God and teach those they help to rely on Him. This makes for highly successful emergence of people out of poverty and other social ills.

Do you trust God to supply your needs? Can you rest in His provision and follow His instructions to save and to give?

Just as Moses told the new nation of Israel to observe a sabbath every seventh day, he also told them to take a sabbatical every seventh year. “When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 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. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.”

It was not enough for the people to stop working one day a week in order to rest, worship, and build relationship with Yahweh. He required them to stop working for one year’s harvests so that they and the land could rest for that year.

Today, farmers know the value of allowing fields to recharge by letting them lie unworked or by planting and plowing back into the soil nitrogen-fixing crops. They also avoid shutting down every field at once by rotating which field will lie fallow from year to year. This practice, of course, doesn’t allow the farmer or his employees to take a year off for rest – clearly a violation of the sabbatical law.

What would the farmer and his people have lived on over the seventh year? Whatever could have been stored over the previous years. After all, they had the example of Joseph in Egypt who stored up grain for seven years against seven years of famine.

What would the farmer and his people do with themselves over the year of agricultural inactivity? I’ve seen no stories about Israel actually complying with this law. These days, professors, some ministers, maybe doctors and other professionals take sabbaticals in order to increase their knowledge and to upgrade their job skills.

What would happen to a factory worker, a store clerk, an office worker who took a sabbatical? Could he or she save enough over six years to live on during the seventh?

What would happen to a company that shut down for a year and gave its employees a year of rest? What would happen to a company as large as General Motors or Boeing if it rotated its divisions through a series of year-long shut downs? Certainly Chase Manhattan would not want to shut down its operations.

What would happen to our economy if 14.25+% (1/7^th) of the population stopped working and the same percentage of businesses stopped operations for a year? Would the economy really go bad? Or would we learn to produce wealth God’s way and allow Him to prosper all of us so much more?

 

If you could take a year off for rest and re-creation, what would you do? Would you study to increase your knowledge and upgrade skills? Might you volunteer for some charitable organization?

How could you save enough over six years to live on for the seventh? Could you trust Yahweh to provide living expenses?

 

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”

When Yahweh brought the descendents of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, He led them to Mt. Sinai. There He made treaty with them to be their ruler and to establish them as a nation.

The fourth requirement He made with them was to set apart every seventh day as holy. “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.” (Ex 20:8)

Today’s descendents of Israel and Seventh-Day Adventists insist that only the seventh day of the Western calendar – Saturday – can be set aside for rest, worship, and building relationship with God. On the other hand, most Christians use the first day of the week – the Lord’s Day – to weekly celebrate His resurrection from the dead. This is their day to cease striving after wealth, to worship and seek after Him.

I find it interesting that Yahweh did not specify which day of the week to honor as Sabbath as He did for celebrating Passover or Yom Kippur or Succoth [Lev 23]. Did the ancient Hebrews have a seven-day week before the Sabbath day was established?

Also fascinating is the question of when the priests and Levites rested from their work of offering the Israelites’ sacrifices to Yahweh. After all, the Christian ministers I know rest on Mondays rather than on Sundays. As well, many employees of hospitals, stores, and other places where people require daily service are not allowed Sundays off. Rather, they are given mid-week days off.

This, of course, suggests that no particular day of the week is required to be the Sabbath day. Rather, each person must decide for him- or herself which day to use for rest. The only requirement is that each person take some day of the week to rest from striving after wealth, to worship Yahweh, and to build relationship with Him.

In his Masters dissertation, GOD IS JUST: A DEFENSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT CIVIL LAWS,  Stephen Che Halbrook pointed out the words of Jesus, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” [Mark 2:27] Good health requires individuals to forego working seven days a week. Halbrook also shows that allowing one’s family and servants – even one’s animals – a rest day prevents abuse through overwork.

Halbrook also gives examples that ignoring the Sabbath is the first step to a life of crime. Seeking after God and His ways instead counters that lifestyle.

I am not suggesting that anyone force people to observe Sabbath days. As Halbrook points out, following biblical laws begins with the individual’s conscience guided by faith in Yahweh.

Above all, taking a day off instead of continuing to pursue wealth shows trust in Yahweh to provide for the future. Changing one’s activities for a day also recreates a person’s physical and mental abilities. This makes the person better able to pursue the wealth Yahweh desires for His people.

 

On your days off, do you rest or merely perform work in another place—such as home? How could you arrange to get such work done one day and actually rest the other?

If you do rest one day a week, do you seek after knowing God, take time to worship Him?

Could He possibly have ideas for how you can find rest? Would you follow them?