Today is Sunday March 10th, the Sabbath day.

Set aside as the Lord instructed for sacred rest.

As I enter prayer now, I lift up my chin to Christ who comes. I remember this day that Jesus promises to

return in the very way we saw him go, not as suffering servant suffering servant but triumphant king.

When he comes, heaven will blanket the earth.

A feast table will be set for his people and I will fully, finally be satisfied and enter into an uninterrupted eternal rest.

King Jesus, on this Sabbath day, let me know your promised delight, joy, and rest. Within the rabbinical tradition, Sabbath is a day set aside for praise and gratitude, but not intercession. Why wouldn't we pray prayers of good request and contending for others

today? Because the Sabbath is a day of sacred rest, a rehearsal for eternal sacred rest, when we will

be without want, our friends without need, and our world without corruption.

We taste eternity in time by savoring God's already given blessings

even as we await his return. Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. In this Lenten season of prayer and fasting, I imaginatively skip ahead in the story,

remembering Jesus of the resurrection. We fast now, but a feast is coming with resurrection Sunday.

Let this Sabbath day tune my appetite and anticipation for that day. And may I praise you from the deepest

place within me now as the God both of fasting and of feasting, formation and freedom,

surprise me with your manifest presence

in the course of my ordinary life today,

as you did those bewildered disciples hiding away in the upper room. Oh, Praise the Lord my soul all my inmost being praise his holy name.

Praise the Lord my soul and forget being, praise his holy name.

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases? Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and

compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the Eagles. In the ordinary monotony, frantic buzz and occasionally tragic chaos I live with.

I'm prone to forget. This ancient impulse to forget God's faithfulness in the face of each new fear.

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