Year 5, Day 54: Nehemiah 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Semi-Circle, Rhythm

• Rhythm: We are designed to work from rest, not rest from work.  God has created us to be a people of rhythm in which we rest (abide), grow, work (bear fruit), and prune.  The better we understand this natural rhythm in life, the more satisfied we will feel in life and the more we will be able to be in tune with succeeding in what God desires our life to be about.

Although Nehemiah 7 appears to be a long list of names – and it is – I think there is some depth here that we can ponder.  Before we get to the names, Nehemiah gives orders about when the gates can be open and when they should be shut.  He also gives orders about setting up guards at the gates and within the cities.  I think both of these things lead to rhythm in life.

Nehemiah is telling us to be careful when we let outside influences in.  With respect to the city, Nehemiah is saying, “Only leave the city vulnerable when the sun is high and there are no places near the wall where people can hide and take you by surprise.”  This is the point of the guards, too.  Nehemiah is telling the people that the city needs guards at the points of entry, but it also needs guards throughout the city as well just to make sure.

For me, these things actually speak about rhythm.  I am less vulnerable to outside influences when I am living in rhythm.  I am best when I know that I am only opening myself up to the outside when I am safe.  I am able to open myself up to the world when I have taken time to assess who I am.  When I have abided with God and grow, I am best able to be open to the world and do the work of God.  But then when the time is right I need to so bearing fruit, close myself up, and return to abide with the Lord and take stock of what is still inside.

When I live like the city of Jerusalem – open when it is safe and guarded internally so as to always be able to take stock of what is happening – I am best able to do the work of God.  When I have a rhythm of spiritual life – abiding, growing, bearing fruit, and pruning so that I can once more abide – I am best able to be obedient to the call of the Lord.

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Year 4, Day 114: Leviticus 25

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Rhythm, Semi-Circle

• Rhythm: We are designed to work from rest, not rest from work.  God has created us to be a people of rhythm in which we rest (abide), grow, work (bear fruit), and prune.  The better we understand this natural rhythm in life, the more satisfied we will feel in life and the more we will be able to be in tune with succeeding in what God desires our life to be about.

Leviticus 25 is one of my favorite chapters when it comes to thinking about the semi-circle and rhythms in life.  Here we have what I believe is the grand-daddy of all explanations for needing rhythm.  We need rhythm because we live best when we understand that everything truly belongs to God and we are merely stewards of what He has given to us.

You see, we as human beings like to long for possession.  We like to own things.  We like to believe that things we purchase are ours forever.  Life becomes a grand collection of stuff.  Rather than focusing on relationships and spirituality our life becomes the pursuit of things and places.  We strive to own our way into stability – and by stability I mean keeping things just the way we like them so that we don’t need to change, work, or be under any agenda but our own.  That leads us to self-centered living.

In this chapter we hear about Sabbaths.  Each week is to have a Sabbath.  Every seven years is to have a Sabbath year.  Every fifty years is to have a special additional Jubilee.  All of this reminds us that the things that we work for are not ours.  This whole world belongs to God, and He is responsible for giving to each of us.  What should be important to us is our relationships, our freedom, and our spirituality.  These are things that are given to us by God.  These are things that cannot be taken away.  These are things that remain while the world is passing away.

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Year 4, Day 112: Leviticus 23

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Rhythm, Work, Rest

• Rhythm: We are designed to work from rest, not rest from work.  God has created us to be a people of rhythm in which we rest (abide), grow, work (bear fruit), and prune.  The better we understand this natural rhythm in life, the more satisfied we will feel in life and the more we will be able to be in tune with succeeding in what God desires our life to be about.

At first glance, Leviticus 23 seems to be about special religious holidays.  This is absolutely correct.  God does want the Hebrew people to remember significant days throughout the year.  He wants them to remember Passover – when they were brought out of Egypt.  He wants them to remember Pentecost – when the first fruit of the harvest should just be coming in.  He wants them to remember the Day of Atonement, when the whole community makes atonement for their sinfulness.  He wants them to remember the feast of Tabernacles as a remembrance of the time spent in the wilderness – especially since it occurred as the last of the harvest would be brought in from their fields.

However, on a more deep level we can see that this passage is about rhythm.  In this chapter we hear about the Hebrew yearly rhythm.  But we also hear about a daily rhythm as well.  Ordinary work can be done for six days of the week, unless there is a special Sabbath or festival.  But on the seventh day, there is not supposed to be any kind of ordinary work.  Here we can hear of another rhythm: God’s work verses the world’s work.

God knows that there is work in the world that needs to get done.  God knows that there needs to be time dedicated to working.  But He also knows that we need to rest from the work of this world and work at the work He has called us to do as well.  In order to be healthy, we need to establish healthy rhythms that allow for us to accomplish work but then rest from the work of the world while we grow closer to God.

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Year 4, Day 5: Genesis 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Rhythm, Semi-Circle

• Rhythm: We are designed to work from rest, not rest from work.  God has created us to be a people of rhythm in which we rest (abide), grow, work (bear fruit), and prune.  The better we understand this natural rhythm in life, the more satisfied we will feel in life and the more we will be able to be in tune with succeeding in what God desires our life to be about.

Chronologies can be interesting passages.  Sometimes we read over them and feel very unengaged.  Other times we read over them and see something different about one or two people.  For example, see the point I bring out in the theological commentary for this passage with respect to Enoch.

But the one thing that chronologies truly remind us about is rhythm.  So-and-so was born.  They lived for this many years.  While they lived, these were their sons.  Then they died.  If you write that pattern enough times, you will get a chronology.  Chronologies are about communal rhythms in their very core.

What I respect about chronologies is that they give us a huge perspective on rhythm.  For so many of us, it is easy to focus on the small cycles of rhythm: daily life, maybe even weekly life.  But it is easy for us to forget the big cycles of life: seasonal, yearly, and lifelong rhythm.  Chronologies allow us to set stories in the bigger context of the rhythm of life: God’s rhythm.

What is the big picture rhythm that we can gain from this chronology today?  Each of the people listed here went through their life while living, rearing children, and raising them up to know God.  I’m sure they made their mistakes.  I’m sure they had their successes.  But God was with them all every step of the way.  Through their rhythm, faith in God was passed one generation to the next until we get to Noah.  It is in this context of rhythm that we can place the story of Noah.  God was with His people generation after generation after generation.

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Year 4, Day 1: Genesis 1

Theological Commentary from 1st cycle of study: Click Here 

Daily Discipleship Focus: Semi-circle, Rhythm

• Rhythm: We are designed to work from rest, not rest from work.  God has created us to be a people of rhythm in which we rest (abide), grow, work (bear fruit), and prune.  The better we understand this natural rhythm in life, the more satisfied we will feel in life and the more we will be able to be in tune with succeeding in what God desires our life to be about.

Genesis 1 is all about rhythms of life.  Obviously, we know the six days of creation and that God rested on the seventh day.  Unfortunately, we hear that and our minds translate that into a “rest from work” mentality.  We see the weekend as our time to recuperate from the hard week of work we just finished.  But remember, mankind was created on the 6^th day.  Our first full day of creation was actually the day that God rested!  So we see that God actually created us to rest first, then work!  This is why we believe that human beings are better off resting and then working out of that place of rest.  This is why we say we rest to work, not rest from work.  Or you could say we work from rest, not rest from work.

However, this is not the only rhythm we see in this text.  Notice that there is the rhythm of the day: evening then morning.  Of course, this is why the Jews organized their day to begin at sunset.  For the Jew, their day begins with rest and ends with work.  What a wonderful way to remember that we rest to work rather than resting from work.

Finally, notice the order within each day.  God speaks, creation happens, creation is named, the day is summarized.  God intends for our days to have rhythm as well.  We are to rest.  We are to prepare for the work.  We are then to bear fruit and get the job done.  Then we are to prune ourselves back so that we can rest at the start of the next day.

As disciples of Christ, we need to follow these rhythms of life.  Rest to work.  But these rhythms need to be daily practices that grow into weekly habits that grow into seasons of obedience to God.  The disciple of Christ is obedient out of the rhythms of life.

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