I feel more prepared for the Sabbath than I have in a long time. I made a conscientious effort this week to clean my house, to be mindful of what still needed to be done, and to make a plan for today.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I completed the majority of my house cleaning. This made it easier for me to focus today on the last minute things that needed to be done.

This morning I made a quick trip to the grocery store for what we need over the weekend. I washed the laundry so that we have clean clothes for church. The dishes are washed and the dishwasher emptied. The entire house is tidied.

I didn’t prepare our Sabbath meal in advance but I want to learn to do that in the future. If our friend goes to church with us tomorrow, we’ll stay for potluck. Otherwise we’ll come home and have pasta for lunch. (Is it possible to boil the noodles in advance so that everything just needs to be heated?)

All that’s left for today is to go for a run and put the clean sheets back on the bed. I’m ready to welcome the Sabbath!

Over the past several weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time in prayer and Bible study. I’ve had my eyes opened about what Sabbath means to God, what it means to me, and how I should be spending His holy day. I’ve been convicted in several areas of my life, places where I feel that I’m not really letting God lead.

One of those places is Sabbath preparation. I truly believe that God has given us a day of rest, a day to spend with Him, and that He is offended if we don’t honor His command to keep His Sabbath holy. I have been convicted that I should not be spending my Sabbath days doing household labor that could be done on other days, mainly in the areas of meal preparation and how I get ready for church (ironing clothes, etc).

I feel that I need to be more conscientious about how I spend the rest of the week so that I am prepared for the Sabbath when it arrives. There is no excuse for not having our clothes ironed and ready by Friday afternoon. There is no reason why I cannot prep food and prepare meals on Friday for Sabbath. I haven’t been doing it, mainly because I’ve been lazy and have not been convicted about the importance of following God’s commands about the Sabbath day.

My Sabbath issues are not just about preparing in advance. I tend to be more motivated about cleaning at the beginning of the week and lose motivation as the week progresses. By the time Friday arrives, the house is rather messy. I attend a knitting group on Friday mornings, go grocery shopping immediately afterwards, and then spend the afternoon scrambling to get things done before sundown. Usually I fail, for whatever reason. So Sabbath arrives and I have dishes in my sink, dinner half prepared, clean clothes but nothing ironed, and an untidy house. I stress when the house is messy and thus often feel overwhelmed on Sabbath.

I am making a commitment this week to put God first. That means that I need to prepare myself both physically and spiritually to spend time with Him on Sabbath. My house needs to be clean so that I can rest my mind. My food preparation needs to be done so that I’m not distracted by the every day chores. My dishes need to be washed and put away so that I can toss the dirty ones into the dishwasher as we use them and thus not create a huge mess in the kitchen, which in turn stresses me out.

I’m sure I won’t get everything right this first week. But I am trying. I want to be open and ready to spend time with God during the time He set aside for us.