Fourth Word - Continued - Exodus 20:8-11

20:8-11 – There is a lot about this 4th word or “commandment” and to be honest, it’s overwhelming. TB mostly only talks about how the proper day of observance is Saturday, which I don’t care about, and the IM has a TON of stuff about it, but so much of it is about how bad the people are who go to the park or the beach or hiking or women who “do their cleaning and other housework.” I think at this point, people all have their own beliefs, and shouldn’t be condemned because they don’t share the church’s beliefs. I’m really pretty tired of the mindset that everyone who drinks alcohol or doesn’t go to my church or don’t keep the commandments the way that “I” think they should be kept are bad. My mom has a firm stance that if you go to church, you can do nothing wrong and if you don’t go to church you can do nothing right, so many people here in Utah have that stance and honestly, it’s exhausting and I’m over it. So instead of going on and on about how inapplicable the condemnation of “women in housecoats and unshaved men spend hours lazing about their homes,” is, I’m going to just focus on what I think about the positive aspects of the Sabbath and what they mean to me.

I don’t think that I let myself off the hook, I know that I could do better in most things, and I try but I’m cyclical like everyone else. There are a couple of things that the IM brought up that I thought was encouraging. Both the IM teaches and TB confirms that the Sabbath “was a ‘sign… that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.’ The Lord teaches a similar concept of holiness or spiritual cleanliness in modern revelation: ‘And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my hole day.’” TB even goes as far as saying that observing the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant God made with Israel through Moses, just like circumcision was the sign for the covenant made with Abraham. The IM makes an interesting statement, “God’s work is the sanctification of His children to the point where they can enter into the ultimate rest, which is the fulness of His glory. Once each week man is commanded to cease his own labors and allow God to perform His work of sanctification of him. Resting on the Sabbath, then, implies far more than taking a nap or stopping normal activities. Mankind must enter into the Lord’s work on that day. This work involved making themselves and others more godlike, another way to speak of sanctification. Doing the work of the Lord (sanctification) often involves great activity on the Sabbath day, and the day may not be restful in the usual sense… The two commandments for the Sabbath are rest and worship… This holy work then creates a new and holy man; so the Sabbath is tied into the work of creation.”

That is a pretty encouraging statement. I think that there are aspects of the commandments that are set out specifically, but for the most part, much of how they are kept is between God and the individual. For instance, in the temple recommend interview, we are asked “do you keep the Sabbath day holy?” Depending on who’s definition you use, that could be a yes or a no for the exact same activities. I’ve heard it preached from the pulpit that if you don’t use a crock pot to cook Sunday dinner, then you are breaking the sabbath by not keeping your meals simple enough. I don’t personally subscribe to that philosophy. We ar also asked if you attend all our meetings. For me right now that answer is no. Could I stay and attend the meetings and then just give up on sleep after my last shift and before my next one? Sure, I could. Should I be doing that? That’s a great question, maybe that’s something I should take the Lord and work out with Him. I’ve heard that renewing our baptismal covenants through taking the sacrament is a big part of keeping the sabbath day holy, which makes sense to me and that’s why I go to take the sacrament before going home. I know that when I first started this shift, there were several weeks where I decided I was just “too tired” to go take the sacrament and it got to the point where I knew that I was just making excuses and that I was distancing myself from God by not doing it.

I’ve reflected on parts of my life where I was struggling or where I went off into the land of sin and doing whatever I wanted, and I can see how at that time, not making the sacrament a priority was a part of my downfall. So was not reading the scriptures and praying, so whenever I think “I’m just not in the mood, I’ll do it later,” I have to stop myself and think “no, this has caused problems for you in the past, don’t let it go this time.” My friend, like the only friend I have left in the church, told me a couple of months ago something that helped me feel better. She said, “no one throughout all of human history has ever had to work so hard to keep a testimony as we do right now. My mom used to be able to go to church on Sundays and never question her testimony, ever. But here we are, and if we don’t go to church on Sundays, study the scriptures intensely everyday, pray always, and if we don’t do this all day every day, then our testimonies slip. Keeping a testimony right now is the hardest it’s ever been and it takes constant work, all day, every day.” That helped me accept the fact that it’s got to be a constant thing, all day, every day, keeping the Spirit close is critical and we really have to work at it. And if the promise is that through keeping the Sabbath day holy, we are sanctified, then I need to work more on what that means for me and what I need to do better. The part about taking the sacrament is pretty clearly the required piece of the commandment, but I think that most other things as to be worked out between us and the Lord. Does keeping the sabbath day holy mean you can’t watch TV? Maybe for some people. Does it mean you can’t go swimming? Maybe for some people. Does it mean you can’t work? Maybe for some people. Maybe it’s a matter of asking ourselves and the Lord, what should I do on the Sabbath to make it God’s holy day? What should I do to bring myself closer to God on the Sabbath? What does He want me to do? And the answers may be surprising, and they probably will change over time as we become more sanctified we will move on to next steps.