The Sabbath,
in Miniature

Of the Ten Commandments, only one begins with the word remember. God's choice of words is interesting. He did not say observe the Sabbath or institute the Sabbath; He said, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy."

This implies that God's people are capable of forgetting Him, and He considered that risk serious enough to establish a weekly safeguard. The Sabbath protected much more than just physical rest. When Moses repeated the commandment forty years later, he clarified that the reason was that Israel was to remember that they had been slaves in Egypt and that the LORD had brought them out (Deuteronomy 5:15).

The Sabbath existed so that, at least once every seven days, the whole nation would stop producing and start remembering who their God was and what He had done for them. After all, we easily forget. Our hearts drift from God not necessarily by decision but simply by inattention, and an inattentive heart is an unguarded heart.

In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul addresses the Sabbath, treating it as a shadow of things to come and pointing to Christ as the reality behind it (Colossians 2:16–17). Furthermore, the book of Hebrews says that a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God, into which we enter by ceasing from our own works (Hebrews 4:9–10).

Although the Old Testament requirement of the weekly Sabbath has been fulfilled, the intention behind it has never expired. God still wants to be remembered, and we are still prone to forget.

To help us remember, we could keep the commandment's spirit on a much smaller scale, many times in a single day. One way is a Sabbath in miniature, which lasts only about ten seconds. When we are in the middle of a task, let's stop what we are doing for a few seconds, turn inwardly to the Lord, call on Him, and remember that He is present, before resuming our activity. In the Psalms, we see King David living this way when he writes that he had set the LORD always before him (Psalm 16:8). Being constantly in God's presence is not a matter of embarking on marathon sessions and forcing ourselves to spend long amounts of time with God. In actuality, it is about turning to God in frequent, brief moments.

The easiest way to begin is to attach the remembering to everyday events that already repeat. It can be waiting at a red light or the moment we unlock our phone; each one can become a reminder, a sort of small bell that calls our attention back to the Lord. The turn can be wordless, or it can be one sentence. When we forget for three hours straight, which we will, there is no need to grieve about it. The moment we realize we have forgotten Him, we have already begun remembering Him again.

Today's question is one of attention: how long do I usually go without a single thought for God?