Remembering to Remember the Sabbath

"Remember how short my time is"

Psalm 89:47

I love laws.  Well, not like legal laws.  I mean, the laws of the universe, or something.  What are those called, natural laws?  Physical laws?

Legislative laws, on the other hand, are a necessary evil.  Or sometimes an unnecessary evil.  But we won't get into politics here...

As a matter of fact, I got into a bit of a run-in with the law just yesterday.  Actually I just got caught up in a DUI checkpoint.  But I was taking my Awesome Girl to volleyball practice, and we were both sober at the time* so we were able to zoom right on through. 

{* Well, truth be told, we're sober all the time.  It's how we roll. }

But no, I'm appreciating laws like gravity.  The laws of motion.  The laws of thermodynamics.  Like that.  The observations of things that just are, whether we like it or not.  The Apple of my Eye came up with one of his own early in our marriage.  He calls it the Law of Liquid Multiplication, and it states that any liquid will increase in volume when spilled. 

Picture it this way:  have you ever kicked over the dog's water?  And what was two cups of water becomes a gallon once it's all over the floor?  It's a true fact, my friends.

I love the expression "true fact".  There's such quiet humor in its ironic redundancy...

But the specific law I'm celebrating today ~ or rather, learning from ~ is "horror vacui":  Nature abhors a vacuum.  Or maybe it's the fact that a gas will expand to fill its container.  I don't know the Latin for that.  But to me they are different ways of saying the same thing.  That any available anything will be filled by something.

There's a law called Parkinson's Law that states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.  That's a true fact, too.  Have you ever started a task earlier than usual, to "leave plenty of time" and then found that you still weren't done until the night before?

Or how about this one:  Possessions expand to fill the space available to accumulate them.  I have seen evidence of this when packing for a trip, and also with purses.  The bigger purse a woman buys, the more stuff she finds she "needs" with her.

Or money.  Got a little extra?  Something unexpected will come up.  Extra money gone.  True fact.

The reason all this thinking came into my brain was that I had "nothing to do" on a recent Sunday.  You may remember that some time ago I started trying to "remember the Sabbath" in a new way.  I wanted to give it some thought, instead of treating it like Day #2 of the weekend.  So over the past several months it has become a subject of prayer for me.  Which is good.  Giving thought to the Sabbath is a good thing.

But as we were driving home from church a few weeks ago, and I realized we had nothing that had to be done that day, I started to think of things that I could do.  A few errands I could run, a couple things to do around the house...

None of them work, really, mind you.  They would have been just inside the realm of "resting".  But even the planning of them made me realize that I was quickly filling up a day that had been empty. 

I think maybe we need to think in terms of protecting the holes in our lives.  Financial advisers recommend putting money into a savings account immediately, so that you don't have a chance to spend it.  Maybe I need to use the same approach when it comes to my Sundays.  I need to think of that time as reserved, and then give Him a chance to show me what to do with my time!

Even if what He wants me to do, is nothing.

~ "My presence will go with you, 

    and I will give you rest" ~

Exodus 33:14

~