What does Sunday mean to you?

kid-church

Some of us grew up in situations where Sunday was boring. Or Sunday was a sports rat race – that is increasingly common. Some of us grew up in homes where Sunday was just another day or worse still, Sunday was a disappointment, because it was supposed to be a family day, or a day off, but nothing ever happened because the family didn’t do anything together. My memories of Sunday include doing a lot of homework. Others may have grown up in homes where Sunday was full of conflict, because church was mandatory but no one really wanted to go, so it was just a heavy obligation.

Whatever your memory of Sunday is I want you to set it aside and embrace the idea that Sundays were never meant to be that way. It begs the question – what could Sundays be?

It’s Not About Obligation

We are part of a movement that cherishes the ethic of “living for the sake of others” but this notion can be misunderstood. Have you ever tried to breathe out without breathing in? If you practice, you might get extraordinarily good at it and even establish a Guinness Book record, as the person with the longest exhalation. But life itself will, at some point, catch up with you and force you to breathe in!

We are a society of exhalelers. We are so used to life on the run that we don’t stop to think about when we last inhaled. We don’t heed the warning signs and so the first realization of trouble is the moment of collapse. Jesus referred to this when he said,

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

I want to propose an unexpected solution to life on the run. Are you ready for it? Here it is: Sunday was created for your happiness and has the potential to be the best day of your week!

What if we saw Sundays differently?

  • It feels like we always have too much to do. God said that Sunday is the answer for that.
  • It seems like we always feel pressured. God made Sundays as the relief for that.
  • We rarely have time for the really important things. God thinks Sundays can take care of that.
  • There’s never enough time for family . . . or the people we love . . . or the rest we need. God designed Sundays for that.
  • Sometimes God feels so nebulous. God enables us to gather on Sundays for that.
  • With so much going on in our world, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters. God created Sundays as the cure for that.

Rather than just making Sunday into a day like every other day of the week maybe we need to establish a right relationship with Sunday.

Sunday as an antidote for what ails us

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a pill we could swallow that would take care of all the symptoms in our lives that destroy our relationships and happiness? Sunday’s with God may be the medicine we need. Watch this video to see if this could relieve your symptoms:

We could take Humilify to eradicate pride and Generis to help fight our urge to hoard our wealth. If only! But it’s not like we don’t have help. It’s really about how we are using our freedom to create the life we want.

It’s about learning to breathe in

I heard a remarkable story on Story Corp this week. It was told by a 90 year old woman who was one of the first preemies to survive back in the 1920s thanks to an incubator. This was before the medical establishment accepted this innovative treatment. The inventor was determined, despite the rejection of the medical community, to make this treatment option available and came up with a novel solution. He provided free care for preemies in his incubators by putting them on display and charging the public to view them at Coney Island. It was not unlike other freak shows of that era. Nonetheless, this woman owes her life to the six months she spent in an incubator at the fairground, as she developed and was able to breathe naturally. It’s a remarkable story.

Our Heavenly Parent is similarly invested in our development and wants us to have a healthy environment to grow spiritually and that’s why Sundays matter. Development doesn’t take place in an instant but over time.

The author of Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, is well known for his research on the value of repetition to build greatness. Practice enables us to hardwire behaviors and experiences because over time they are no longer done consciously. The more you practice the less you need conscious thought. Aristotle thought this is how virtues became acquired. He noted that habit becomes second nature. Prayer engenders gratitude, charitable giving makes us generous, disciplined listening causes us to become compassionate.

Camp Aurora Holy YogaWhat you may call religious ritual, far from being old fashioned or outmoded seems to be in tune with the new neuroscience of the plasticity of the brain and how character develops.

 “The great faiths never forgot what science is helping us to rediscover: that ritual creates new habits of the heart that can lift us to unexpected greatness.” – Jonathan Sacks

If you apply the ritual of church attendance as a means of encountering God and examine the impact it has you might be surprised. Imagine a graph in your mind. The vertical line represents happiness and prosperity. The horizontal line represents years on a calendar. Plot the percentage of our nation’s church attendance year by year.

You’ll notice attendance been going down for the last few decades. Now plot the percentage of societal happiness and family prosperity over that same length of time. What you find is the two factors are directly related. The higher the church attendance, the higher the happiness quotient. Why is that?

It’s because there is something you can’t see, touch, taste, or smell about church attendance that makes it the most powerful investment of your week. Something about being in church helps us.

The importance of the Sabbath:

Way back at the beginning of time, the Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth. After it was all done it says God rested. Do you think He rested because He was tired? God is beyond time and space – He doesn’t get tired! The reason God rested on the seventh day was because He knew that rhythm was important in the cycle of creation and WE need it. The Sabbath shows us something.

Have you ever worked so hard you became a crazy person? In your exhaustion you lost your temper, became self-righteous and devoid of compassion. You desperately needed a double dose of Humilify! You cannot function normally without the Sabbath – that’s why it matters.

When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, his fourth commandment was “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” That Commandment was given thousands of years ago but it remains as a core truth because it contains valuable wisdom that stands the test of time. It wasn’t simply a nice, new idea that would hold for just a few years.

Five Reasons to Invest in a Weekly Sabbath

1. I need it – it’s not about someone telling you to go to church or take the day to connect to God and rest. God knows you need it and wants that for you.

God is not trying to take all the fun out of life either. He wants to increase your happiness and improve your life by giving you a day to refresh, refuel, and refocus with Him because He knows you need it and you will be better for it.

2. God’s invitation to me

It’s not all about how I benefit. Have you ever been in a relationship where the other person doesn’t really make effort? You do all the reaching out. It feels a lot like a relationship of convenience. Too often this is the relationship we find ourselves in with God. We fail to make effort.

Inspiration begins when we recognize that we are receivers of blessings from God. The reason to go to church or worship in another way is simply to love God back. It’s a natural give and take.

Lots of things get in the way of loving God back – time (that’s why we need Sundays), the right place, feelings of guilt. All kinds of things. To help us love God back, Father Moon bequeathed holy candles with the understanding that we could create a holy space (both spiritually and physically) in our environment to connect to God. In praying over the candles he bequeathed he said these words:Candle

After Adam fell, he lost the source of his real life and love. Man has continued to fail You in heart. Because of this failure, You have had to engage in restoring fallen people. Keeping in mind Your suffering heart, each of us desire to occupy the position of restored Adam or Eve. Please feel our determination to restore all things. Whenever these candles are burned, may the flame they produce comfort Your heart, and remind You of our dedication to accomplish Your will. Whenever we burn them and pray, may we further strengthen our determination to restore ourselves.”

One thing I deeply appreciate about Rev. Moon is that he taught me about God’s suffering heart and opened up a new relationship with God for me whereby I could be closer to Him because I understood Him better. I realized, even I had the ability to comfort God’s heart in some way. That is an amazing truth to receive. We come to church to love God back.

3. God blessed the Sabbath  

We have to redefine the Sabbath – take it out of the box we put it in at some point in our lives and see it differently. God says that He blessed the Sabbath. It’s a special day, not an extra day. It pays to treat it as special. When we respond to that which God blesses, we receive something more. There is a hidden gift that God wants you to discover. I hope you can discover your gift.

4. My life goes better when I Sabbath

So many of us think that we can get ahead faster, if we are productive seven days a week. Americans work incredibly long weeks and even so are probably out done by the Japanese. I have a friend who is living in Japan. Her husband works 16-17 hour days and that is considered normal. On top of that he often gets called in on the weekends. I can’t imagine.

But there are some alternative models out there. I stumbled across the website of Hobby Lobby recently as I was looking at grant opportunities. I was amazed by their corporate philosophy. It’s a Christian company and they shut all the stores on Sundays, so their employees can be with their families and worship according to their faith. You may ask, how can they do that and still succeed in our competitive economy? Somehow, they do and their employees have a quality of life that is priceless. Last week Cheryl talked about freedom. We have freedom to make choices and I was so moved by the choice the CEO of Hobby Lobby made for God and for the people that work for him.

How could your life improve if you treated Sundays differently?

Here are some statistics I think you’ll find interesting. Secular sociologists have studied the benefits of church attendance. Follow this for a minute. What they’ve found is that those who attend church regularly…

  • Live seven and a half years longer than those who don’t. (And yet some people say they don’t have time for church!)
  • Are 56 percent more likely to have an optimistic life outlook than those who don’t.(That’s true, isn’t it?)
  • Are 27 percent less likely to be depressed.
  • Have higher average levels of commitment to partners, higher levels of marital satisfaction, less thinking and talking about divorce, and lower levels of negative interaction.
  • Achieve higher grades, practice better time management, and experience a better sex life.

That’s all good stuff!

5. Good Sundays make better Mondays

Does anyone dread Mondays? We get out of bed saying, “I wish I didn’t have to go back to work today.” We’re exhausted and unmotivated because we used all our energy on Sunday doing a bunch of stuff instead of receiving new energy from practicing the Sabbath. Good Sundays make better Mondays.

Pause for a moment and consider if you are struggling with something that you need an answer for. Would you like a solution to your problem? Yesterday a young man called me about some challenges he had been experiencing at work. He didn’t know what to do or how to approach the situation. What he needed was perspective. That is what God wants to give us. That is the purpose of the world’s great faith traditions.

happiness1God wants to liberate us from our suffering. It’s a two way street and when you reach out to Him, He will reach right back. Too often, we are stuck because of our limited view, which is why God wants to open our minds, expand our understanding and fill our hearts.

I try to use the Bible, the Divine Principle and other sacred texts to help me move forward in my life. I was reminded that good Sundays make better Mondays when Pastor David Young visited Faith Fusion recently. All day at work on Monday I couldn’t stop thinking about his point that we usually act driven by our ego rather than who we want to be. I have been trying to allow my core desire to be happy, healthy and successful to drive my actions and produce new results. It’s what God wants for me too.

Learning how to apply the Principle in everyday life is important; it requires dedicating time to the quest. Rev. Moon invested his life to this effort. He once said:

“In a way the Divine Principle, this new revelation, is a documentary of my life. It is my own life experience. The Divine Principle is in me and I am in the Divine Principle.”

I come here on Sundays because I want to solve my questions and problems and be fully happy, healthy and successful. Good Sundays make better Mondays. I hope the questions you have in your heart can be answered in this sacred space that we are carving out together at Faith Fusion.

Recently, I heard about someone who hated Sundays. The expectation to go to church seemed controlling. He felt burned out after a week at work and wanted to stay home. To his surprise. one day he heard God whisper to him, “I love Sundays, because that’s the day when my children sing to me.”

God loves Sundays

And He hopes you to love them too! It starts with deciding Sunday will be the best day of your week, which means deciding to make the Sabbath work for you. Make happy and hang out with God!

A few of years ago, Craig Morgan recorded the song “That’s What I Love About Sunday” to remind us, in his own style, of the value of this special gift day. Listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm3aCyRD3Vg

 

 

 

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