Vegging Out

Written by Tony Stith 

I’m glad the weekend is finally here. It's been a stressful week. All I could think of doing after leaving work on Friday was to get home, grab the remote, claim some couch real estate, and use as little brain power as possible. Basically, I just wanted to veg (pronounced “vej”) out.

I'm confident I wasn't the only one on the highway that evening who felt that way. In fact, our lifestyles have gotten so hectic that“vegging out” has become quite the national pastime. Whole industries are dedicated to helping people find new ways to do absolutely nothing. They couldn't find a group of more willing consumers. Given the chance to finally relax, we readily reach for the remote, head to the theatre, crank up the stereo, turn on the video games, turn off our brains and become part of the plant kingdom.

The downside of our growing appetite for this type of mindless entertainment is that we spend less and less time pursuing activities that bring deep, lasting pleasure and satisfaction. Activities such as learning to play an instrument, mastering another language, reading a classic piece of literature, studying God’s word, spending time in prayer or thoughtful meditation have, for many, become casualties of our frenzied lifestyles. These activities require work, effort and mental energy. When we’re tired, exhausted from the stresses of life, it’s natural for us to take the path of least resistance, least effort.

The other day I came upon a scripture, a prayer of David, that had quite an impact on me. In Psalms 119:37 David asks God to… “Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, And revive me in Your way.” To put it in the modern vernacular, “Help me to put down the remote; and get fired up about the things that matter."

It’s a prayer I’ve begun to make my own of late. I don't want to always go down the path of least resistance. I don't want to constantly give in to the mindless pursuits that saturate this culture and so easily divert my attention. It might take some effort. It might mean re-ordering my priorities somewhat. But I'm determined to get off the couch and get engaged in pursuits that really matter, that truly bring lasting value and satisfaction. Chief among them the things that strengthen my relationship with my God.

Not that I’ll never allow myself to “veg out” again. Sometimes the brain just needs to sit on idle. It’s okay once in awhile. It’s just a practice whose roots I refuse to let go too deep.

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"I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways. I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word." Psalms 119:15 - 16 

Delighting in the Sabbath...Completely

What a blessing is the Sabbath. It’s especially a blessing for we who live in a culture where each minute seems to be loaded to capacity. If not for the Sabbath our lives would be lost in a sea of busyness…running here, running there. There are so many important places to be and important things to do. Our culture teaches us to put our lives in overdrive. Even our leisure time has become a harried experience. How many of us, after a long weekend getaway or an extended vacation, feel the need to recuperate from the experience?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that the prolonged stress of all this busyness takes it’s toll on our physical, mental and spiritual well-being. We just weren’t designed to take that kind of abuse. That’s why God gave us the wonderful blessing of the Sabbath. In it He holds up a stop sign at the end of each week allowing us to step out of the cyclone that is often our lives and focus and meditate on Him.

Meditation is a quality that has largely been lost in our society, even among many Christians. Take time to think? Who has the time?! There’s too much to do, too much to accomplish. It’s a concept that many of us who have observed the Sabbath for some time and are accustomed to taking one day out of seven to rest might even find challenging to apply. Oh, we have no problem curtailing our normal weekly physical activities. Curtailing the train of our mental activity, however, is a different matter altogether. It’s a little more of a challenge to set aside the cares, concerns and preoccupations of the work week in favor of meditating and focusing on the things of God.

Isaiah 58:13 tells us that we should call the Sabbath a delight. To delight in something entails giving it our full attention. Delighting takes us a step beyond merely resting from our physical activity. It’s about resting the complete self…physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Of course, we understand that entering His rest doesn’t mean a complete cessation of physical or mental activity. The Sabbath rest was given as a means of redirecting our physical and mental activity toward Him. We find our rest in Him.

God wants us to enter completely into His rest; to be renewed, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. Just putting our physical activity on hold while our brain continues to work on overdrive is analogous to flooring the accelerator of an automobile while pressing our foot on the brake. The car might not be going anywhere, but would anyone say it is truly at rest? No, it’s only by fully delighting in the Sabbath; resting the complete self; that true renewal can occur.

What a wonderful gift our God has given us in this day. Let’s delight in it…completely.

The Wonder Years

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them..."  - Psalms 127:3-5

My daughter and I watched one of our favorite shows together the other night, The Wonder Years. It's the reflections of a grown man, reliving the ups and downs, the joys, the pains, the "wonder" of his adolescent years.  Though uniquely his, they are, in many ways, experiences universal to all of us. It's a great show. 

As I watched with my daughter I realized that, as a young high school student, she was living through the final days of her own Wonder Years.  

She has her own memories, her own drama playing out in the hallways between classes, over the seat backs of her school bus and, in an environment unique to her generation,  her texting and Facebooking world.  Maybe that's why she enjoyed watching the show as much as I did. 

I realized as I sat there with my daughter that even as both my children have lived through their Wonder Years, I've experienced them from a different perspective.  My memories of my kids wonder years are rich. They include:

• Wrestling matches on the carpet
• Nightly stare down contests
• Secret family handshakes
• Pillow fights followed by a bed time prayer at the side of the bed.
• Running to dad to pull out a sliver
• Squeels of joy over my special Sabbath morning pancakes and beef bacon.
• Jockeying for the best position on daddy's lap, as if it was the only chair in the room 
• A daily dose of "kugs" (code word for kisses and hugs) before heading out the door each morning 
• The yell of Daddy's Home! and the rush into my waiting arms when I enter our home after a long day
• and many, many more, too numerous to mention...

Don't get me wrong.  It's not that I don't enjoy my kids as much as they are getting older. I do....immensely. Watching them grow and mature brings a lot of joy to my wife and I. It's just that I wasn't quite ready for the wonder of those early years to fade away as quickly as they have.  


So yesterday morning, as my daughter was getting ready to rush out the door to the bus without so much as a "see ya", my nostalgia got the better of me. "Hey, wait just a minute princess!" I protested.  "You're not getting out of here without a kiss goodbye."  To which she stopped, spun around, threw me a quick air kiss, with a sigh said "love you daddy" and was out the door...leaving me to feel a little needy for asking. Ah, the fading remnants of the wonder years.   I guess I have to let them go sometime.  I realize it's the natural order of things, and that each particular stage of their lives will hold it's own new set of wonders, but, for me, none as much as those early days. I only wish I had taken more time to appreciate them while they were here.


So, my advice to parents of young children: Don't take them for granted. Don't let the stresses of life, the struggle to make ends meet, to establish your career, to build the home of your dreams, the hassles of carting them from place to place, activity to activity, distract you from enjoying the wonder.  Appreciate each and every wonderful moment with your young children to its fullest.  Like me, you'll be looking back on them with nostalgia before you know it. 

You Might be a Lukewarm Christian if...

Written by Tony Stith

"So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth." Revelation 3:16

You might be a luke-warm christian if...

...you wear nicer clothes to work than you do to church.
...you have more notes on your refrigerator than you do in your Bible.
...you think redemption is something you do with a winning lottery ticket.
...all but a few of the pages of your Bible are still stuck together.
...you skip church because of a headache but go to work with the flu.
...not only do you not know where to find Habakuk, you didn't even know it existed.
...the most profound words you've read all week came from the inside of a fortune cookie.
...you think Communion is something you do with nature.
...the church welcome committee reintroduces themselves to you whenever you go to church.
...you wear your golf clothes to church on warm summer days.
...you know how many tiles are on the church ceiling.
...you're jealous of the kid napping on the floor one isle in front of you.
...your attendance at church can be tracked by the local weather forecast.
...you get your best sleep on your knees.
...the closest you've gotten to sharing your faith was saying "bless you" when someone sneezed.
...you think the Patriarchs are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
...when the minister asks the congregation to turn to the "love chapter" you turn to the Song of Solomon.
...you believe the Proverbs were written by someone named Confucius.
...you give more money to the parking meter at work than you put in the church offering.
...you wish your children were still babies so you'd have an excuse to get up and leave during the message.
...your children are babies and you purposely provoke them to cry so you can get up and leave during the message.
..."Amen" to you is translated "Thank God it's over!"
...you can't understand what pro-lifers are all worked up about.
...you watch Oprah to get fed spiritually.
...the last time you really prayed was on 9/11.