Our stake and I am assuming the whole church is focusing a lot on the Sabbath day. Making the Sabbath more holy and sacred. Our RS and EQ lessons yesterday were on the Sabbath and mainly President Nelson's conference talk called "The Sabbath is a Delight".
Jon went to a stake training sometime in July about Sunday's and how we can make our Sunday's better and more for the Lord...as they should be. So we have been working on it. It's hard with a 2 year old. Trying to teach her that Sunday is a special and different day. Trying to wean her from her "shows" on Sunday is tough. We are getting there, but it's a process lol.
Here are a few things we have learned:
- Be prepared. If we do not prepare on Friday or Saturday our Sundays tend to be "messy" and we are more quick to anger. Making sure I know what we are going to eat, what we will do with Fi before church to keep her busy and not want to watch TV and figuring out our clothes. Preparing our church bags is huge too.
-Attitude. We have learned to have a more positive attitude when it comes to keeping the sabbath day holy. To be grateful for this day of rest and time with family. It is hard since we have to be the example to Fi. We try to limit out phone and TV. We try to remember this from Pres. Nelsons' talk "Think of this: In paying tithing, we return one-tenth of our increase to the Lord. In keeping the Sabbath holy, we reserve one day in seven as His. So it is our privilege to consecrate both money and time to Him who lends us life each day"
-Change of HEART. We have learned that we need to have a change of heart and create a desire to keep our sabbath day holy. Pres. Nelson stated it perfectly "How do we hallow the Sabbath day? In my much younger years, I studied the work of others who had compiled lists of things to do and things not to do on the Sabbath. It wasn’t until later that I learned from the scriptures that my conduct and my attitude on the Sabbath constituted a sign between me and my Heavenly Father.12 With that understanding, I no longer needed lists of dos and don’ts. When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, “What sign do I want to give to God?” That question made my choices about the Sabbath day crystal clear."
We don't need a list of do's and don'ts. Everybody has different circumstances. We all see keeping the Sabbath Sacred in different ways. What matters is whats in our heart and we do the best we can.
What sign do we want to give God? We want Him to see we are trying the very best we can and we are doing it because we love Him and are grateful for this day of rest and rejuvenation for our spirit.
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2 comments:
Thank you, Sarah for this post. I have been really searching for ways to make the Sabbath a more holy day for my children. It's really tough when they are young and every hour of the day seems so long to them. Getting them to appreciate Sunday all day takes a lot of planning as you mentioned. I applaud you for weaning Fi off shows and movies!! That is AMAZING! We are striving to teach our two that Sundays are special in many ways, and I, too, hope to be a good example to them of this.
Elder Nelson's teaching about "Sunday being a sign of a covenant we have made with God" has been SO amazing to me. I have thought of it again and again. Elder Bednar echoed this teaching in his Face to Face with the youth recently. I just know it's an essential principle to understand generally--that our behavior is a sign of a covenant with God in many ways!
Thank you so much for your post. This is of great concern to our leaders now, so I understand too. I agree that by striving to make the Sabbath a "delight" we will increase our spirituality and grow closer to God!
The other quote I LOVE from Elder Nelson's Sabbath day talk is "Faith in God engenders a love for the Sabbath: faith in the Sabbath engenders a love for God."
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