THRIVING IN LIFE

                I was mowing my lawn on Monday (between rain storms) and listening to NPR on my headset. An interview came on with Arianna Huffington. She has just released a book titled Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder. I have not read the book, so I cannot comment on its contents, but the conversation intrigued me. Arianna was talking about the need for rest. We are an exhausted, over-extended society. We are not performing up to our potential because we have depleted our internal resources. This concept was presented as some new, break-through discovery.

                As I was listening, I thought that what was being said comes right out of the Bible. God designed humanity to need regular periods of rest and relaxation in order to function properly. He called it Sabbath. The idea of Sabbath has all but disappeared in our world. Today we run on a 24/7 schedule. There was a time when businesses routinely closed on Sunday to allow people to worship and rest. Today Sunday is just another day. In fact, Sunday has become the day to hold all manner of events that directly interfere with the call to worship and rest.

                We all want to thrive in life, not just survive. Here are few suggestions from scripture to help us bring order back into the chaos of life.

1. Rediscover Sabbath

                Rest is a very important part of staying healthy. Without proper rest, our bodies wear down and become susceptible to all manner of disease. God commanded that we take a Sabbath, because He knew that we would push ourselves beyond our limits. He felt it was so important that He included it in the Ten Commandments.

                "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. 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 manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. Deuteronomy 5:12-14

                There are two main purposes for Sabbath; worship and rest. God calls us to set apart a regular time when we stop the normal routine activities of life and focus our thoughts on God. God also calls us to set aside the regular activities of life so that we can rest. Both are essential if we are going to thrive in life.

                One of the dangers with Sabbath is that it can become legalistic. This is what happened with the Pharisees. They become so focused on observing the Sabbath, that they missed the point. Sabbath became a restrictive, burdensome thing. Jesus challenged this approach to the Sabbath. He restored God’s original purpose in Mark 2:27. Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

2. Readjust your perspective

                We have lost our perspective in life. We have made the acquisition of material things the goal. Prosperity and abundance have become our god. We run ourselves ragged chasing these illusive targets. Because of this, our lives are filled with anxiety and stress. The book of Ecclesiastes clearly summarizes the trap that so many people have fallen into. Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. Eccles. 5:10

                Jesus challenged this blind pursuit of prosperity. He reminds us that life is more than material possessions.  Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Luke 12:15

                Jesus gives us the antidote to the stress of chasing material gain.  "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

    "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:25-34

3. Regain trust

                Trust has almost disappeared from our world. We no longer trust our government. Recent revelations about government surveillance of phone records has only worsened the problem. We have become spectacle about almost everything, from car sales, to newspaper reports, to product claims. Because of a growing, undefined sense of fear, we don’t even trust the people who live next door to us. A lack of basic trust replaces our sense of security and well-being with fear and anxiety.

                Trust and faith go hand in hand. The greater faith a person has in another person or institution, the greater they will trust them. As followers of Christ, our lives are dependent upon our faith in Jesus. As our faith in Him grows, our trust of him grows as well. As we learn to trust Jesus, we can then extend that trust to others. People and institutions will disappoint us along the way, but our underlying trust in Jesus will keep us from descending back into despair.

                Out trust in Jesus is founded on the reality of His resurrection from the dead. That is the bedrock of our faith. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.  But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 1 Corinthians 15:17-21

                Jesus invites us to completely trust him. When we put our trust in Jesus, our future is secure, no matter what happens.  "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

    Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

    Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:1-6

4. Rediscover genuine love

                The word love in the English language is a broad, watered down, often confusing word. We use it in so many contexts that it is hard to understand what we mean by love. We say that we love Coke, we love baseball, we love our dog, we love our spouse, we love our children, we love summer.

                When the Bible talks about love, it is most often referring to the kind of love that God has for us. This is unconditional love. God loves us without strings attached. This does not mean that he excuses our sin or overlooks our rebellion. Because of His great love for us, He has taken steps to address the many deficits in our lives. What He asks of us is that we respond wholeheartedly to His love and then extend that love to others.

                God showed the extent of His love when He sent Jesus into the world. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17

                When Jesus was asked what was the most important thing for us to do in life, he responded that we should live a life of love. One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

    "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:28-31

                When we realize just how much we are loved by God, we are freed to love others, even if they do not respond in kind. God loves us independent of our response to Him. We can love others independent of their response to us.

    Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:7-12

                There is much more the Bible teaches us about how to thrive in life, but these four are foundational. If we will honestly seek to incorporate Sabbath, trust, a godly perspective and love into our lives, we will indeed THRIVE!