Schedule It, And Follow Through

Sponsor message

Church 214 has no sponsorship yet but I wanted to let you know about a great group of people I serve with at The American Legion. Our post is nearly 100 years old, but we a forward thinking organization with cutting edge veterans programs such as Bunker 58 E-Sports and our bi-weekly Peer to Peer Support group. Check for The American Legion in your area or come partner with us in Guthrie, OK.

Introduce myself and topic (30 secs to 1 minute)

My name is George Shafer, and I pastor Church 214. I am a retired Army veteran with 15 years of service, and I am completing my final year in seminary with a graduation date of May 2025.

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Tease the episode and guest/housekeeping/new with me

Today we are limited in time as this is a school assignment with certain parameters, but I wanted to take a moment to tell you that the military way you engaged with for so long is certainly part of your formation, but it may be time to learn new skills that will assist in the civilian transition; which can be a decades-long process! Today’s podcast is called Schedule and Follow Through.

Main topic

            -lets get the elephant addressed in the room shall we? Our nation recently experienced an attempted Presidential assassination. This comes as we find ourselves in a society already primed for discourse, as we are also in an election year. Let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment, we were all pretty busy/tired/stressed/confused/ and overwhelmed. But now we have a national event on top of global wars, spy balloons, and getting our kids to soccer practice. I recently found myself at the end of my rope with the dumb stuff. And I know I’m not alone in that throughout our military community. I was just over the dumb stuff. Yeah but over the past couple of days the tension has just been so high in certain areas, and it just came to a boiling point with me. I had to apologize and withdraw from a few situations recently, but I wanted to not only share my failures with you, but where my hope comes from.

            -Yes, you may have guessed it, but my hope comes from the Lord. God, my Abba Father in heaven, Jesus, the Son of the Living God, and the Holy Spirit, three in one. I have fellowship and communion with my Father, He is who I run to in times of challenge and persecution.

            Now, you may be listening in and already have a relationship with God. Awesome! You are welcome here, especially because that’s not the end of the message today. One way that I relate to and understand my Father is to read the words he left us in the Bible. But I want to be super clear on point number two, which is this: throughout the Word of God, He has left us with hope. And today that word of hope I want to share with you is the Sabbath.

            -Pleaser don’t tune me out. I am not attempting to regurgitate Christian orthodoxy. This has helped change my life for the better in so many ways. From a selfish perspective, adhering to the Sabbath gives my body, mind, and spirit some much needed rest. If you are hearing the sound of my voice today, I can almost guarantee that you are in need of rest. I’m a husband, a father, a student, a leader, a chaplain, and a friend. I need rest. The Sabbath is a loving God who intimately knows you and knows the inner workings of the human body. You were created to have one day of rest per week in order for your mind, body, and soul to operate at full capacity. You may require more rest depending on the season of life and your current health.

Now this is going to require a lot of communication with your family, your friends, and your employer. Because of where you are in life, you may have to pick a four-hour period on a weekend or weekday to begin the process of Sabbath. For my journey, I have communicated with people in my life, and continue to communicate. Right now the Sabbath for me looks like no work, whether inside the home or outside the home. I don’t allow the Sabbath to serve as a clean-up day, where I strive to get everything done that I couldn’t during the week. And its so hard! I’ not negating that. I have to schedule the other six days really well in order to accomplish this. And side note, this also requires me to steward my time well. But let me remind you now, as I sit on the Sabbath and rest, I become painfully aware of the mess I left in my office from school and work. The dust that has collected on the ceiling fan. The form I forgot to fill out for my daughter’s volleyball game, and I didn’t vacuum the bedroom Friday like I wanted to. But that is the beautiful struggle of the Sabbath, and that’s what makes it special to the Lord. Because He is more important than my way of doing things.

So I’ve discussed what I don’t do on the Sabbath; but what do I do-do on the Sabbath? Well, I need to let you know that I’ve certainly not perfected it. But like Paul I boast in my weakness. What I do is I try to worship, worship is a Sabbath function. What else do I do? I sleep in, I smile, intentionally. I go outside and view His creation without the distraction of my busy life. I eat great food with people I love, I spend some alone time because that’s how I recharge, I play video games, sometimes by myself and sometimes with my kids. I search the sky on Friday nights for the third star to appear as was tradition in the days of the Israelites to begin the Sabbath. I give Him thanks and I am available to talk with my bride and watch my children; if you are concerned with boredom during the Sabbath let me put your mind at ease, there is plenty to do.

And let me close with this. With all of the stress and pressures of adulthood, parenthood, home life, and working in your communities; isn’t it even just a little reassuring that God thought about you and gave you an opportunity for rest that is attached to your faith? So often I hear people discussing the Sabbath even angrily, as if it is just one more thing we have to do. And I get that. But please allow me to begin changing that thought process. He loves you so much that your need for rest made it in the Bible. Jesus himself said that the Sabbath was made for man, not the other way around. It was made for you! It was made for your restoration, it was made to bring you closer to Him, and all you have to do is schedule it and follow through. Its as easy and as hard as that. May the Lord bless you today in all of your efforts, but I pray a special anointing over you and your Sabbath.

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