David:     Scholars sometimes call it the rhythm of the sacred. Karen, do you know what it is I’m referring to?

Karen:     Well, I think you’re referring to passage in Genesis. It started in Genesis, this rhythm, when God created the world in six days. And then on the seventh day, he rested. And so, are we supposed to?

David:     Well, there’s a whole Sabbath principle we’ll talk about.

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:     I’ll read. This is Genesis 2:2. By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing. Great. Oh, world, wow. So, on the seventh day, he rested from all his work and God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Karen:     So, we have this law that has been passed through the Judeo-Christian heritage of the Ten Commandments. And we rigorously understand those Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not be your false witness. One of them is thou shalt observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. And that’s the one we seem to offend in our modern lives all the time.

David:     Well, at least in this country, less and less has that become prominent in people’s minds. In fact, to the degree where even church attendance is falling off, it’s a very sad thing. Karen, not only do we have that one day a week for resting, but on top of that, there is a celebration that comes. Man is not a beast. He works six days, but then he also worships on a given day. In fact, even the animals were to be given rest. Then the land, the land was to be…

Karen:     Yes, there’s supposed to be Sabbath in the land. A Sabbath year, wasn’t it?

David:     Every seventh year, You will let the land rest. If God said, if you don’t do that, I’ll see that your enemies conquer you and then the land will get the Sabbath rest that it should have. So, it’s almost embedded in the world. Very important.

Karen:     The interesting thing is that we do not practice this well among our church people because our Sundays are so filled with activities or meetings or often come back to church for something else in the evening or afternoon when we were doing church attendance before COVID. But culture doesn’t know how to rest. And I think our culture is restive, filled with anxiety because it doesn’t understand the Sabbath principle as well. I can remember as a girl when no one did anything on Sunday. The shops weren’t open, you couldn’t do your grocery shopping, stores weren’t open, and then that changed. And I think our entire culture has suffered because we do not have a Sabbath practice even in our culture. We don’t know how to renew in the ways that that Sabbath provides us.

David:     The celebration side. I want to talk about that for a while. For the Jewish people, God established times of celebration through the course of the whole year. I am a recovering workaholic. I was addicted to working.

Karen:     Ok.

David:     It’s like saying I’m a recovering alcoholic. I violated the Sabbath principle. I just never stopped working. I would say it was a sin in my life. I don’t know how I fell into it, but part of it was I had a broadcast that was on six days a week and then I ended up doing television five days a week at the same time and they were just endless.

Karen:     I would say that.

David:     You never had time to rest.

Karen:     It was a malpractice in your life that became addictive. Where you couldn’t stop anymore at a certain point in time, you had to have that other thing that you needed to do just to make yourself feel worthy perhaps. I’m not quite sure, but we’ve talked about this a lot.

David:     As I began to break that cycle, with God’s help, I don’t think I’ve ever come to the place where the resting is all right, but the idea of celebrating that I’m no good at. I don’t know. I’m not Jewish, so I don’t follow the Jewish celebrations. And I’m struggling with that. In fact, I put it right into the present. I’m tired now. You ought to be able to identify because you’ve written way more books than I have, but I’ve just finished writing another book. I would say it took over a year, probably more like a year and a half. Writing a book is a hard job because you just can’t let it go.

Karen:     You’re just totally concentrated on it, even when you’re away from the writing desk or your computer, whatever you use. You use a pencil. Everything is handwritten. Your mind is working on it all the time. Middle of the night you wake up and you think, well, this is how I could say that, or, oh, I forgot about that resource. That would be great to quote from that. That just almost doesn’t stop. You’re doing other stuff sometimes, but your mental apparatus is working on the book the whole time.

David:     I have finished the book. It has not had written. All of it has been typed out on computer and all that. And actually, this week I ran off the first copies to send. I sent out earlier, first readers, they gave suggestions, which is a huge process. Very helpful, but I take a lot of work. I now have copies that say, this is the best I can do and I’m not going to fiddle with it anymore. And if somebody wants to read it, they can.

Karen:     So, it’s hundreds of pages. You’re holding your measuring in here in front of the microphone. Listeners can see what you’re doing.

David:     Well, the book is typewritten pages is a little less than 100. Your books mostly are larger than that.

Karen:     Yes, it’s not a big, big, big book, but your idea. What is your idea in that book?

David:     It’s a call to people to pray for a moving of God’s spirit. We will never see this country change without a religious revival. And that will not happen apart from a prayer base. And I don’t think ministers are going to assign people these like you be the C.E. chairman, or you be the music chairman, or you be the financier, you be the prayer chairman. That’s not going to happen, but I try to show people how they can volunteer in that role and how it can be meaningful. And I use the picture of the vigilante in the West as it was opening up. They didn’t have law and order. They didn’t have judges and so on. There would be a sheriff, but he had to have…

Karen:     In some places, but not everywhere, David.

David:     No, it happened so fast.

Karen:     Yeah, the West opening up so much in the States here.

David:     So, if somebody robbed a bank, the sheriff either had to go out on his own after the gang, or he had to say, “I need some vigilantes to join with.”

Karen:     A possie.

David:     A possie is a good word, but these were people that they were assigned the role of helping the sheriff. He couldn’t draft them. He had to look for volunteers. And he was in a dangerous role. Anyway, I’m saying we need to put out the call for prayer vigilantes. That’s where it is. And the picture plays well, I think, in terms of the book. Now I’m to the place where I’m finished, it would be fast if within a half a year the book would come out.

Karen:     Yeah, we still have to decide how we’re going to publish it, or if we want to find a publisher or do it ourselves. And I’m sort of inclined to find a publisher if there’s one who wants to pick the book up.

David:     You have to talk in terms of a cover and everything. So, now I have a wait for probably a half a year to at least three quarters of a year. And I don’t know how to celebrate. I can rest. In fact, I have figured out ways that we are going to rest. And I won’t think about the book for a while, but I’ve missed the celebration part of that whole thing of “sabbathing”. And what do I do to solve that? I thought maybe from your experience of writing more books than I have, you could tell me how to do that.

Karen:     Probably not. This is sort of post-creative distress, right?

David:     You know what, Karen, it’s a funny thing. I am tired.

Karen:     Yeah, you’re tired.

David:     I’m really tired.

Karen:     Some of it has to do with your age and having taken on this very big project that consumed you for a year, at least a year. And now it’s done and you’re having the feeling of almost kind of a collapse. I can see you, kind of really being tired and facing that fatigue saying, “Why am I really feeling tired?” It’s because you’ve done this huge project. But our question here, for the purposes of this podcast is, how do we rest after a big project in the spirit of celebration? Is that pretty much what you’re grappling with?

David:     I’m thinking not just myself either. Here’s say a mother who the husband’s died or there’s been a divorce, and this person has raised these kids and now finally the last one is going off to school or has a job, whatever. And a job has been accomplished by that parent. But who’s there to cheer? Probably not too many people, you know. And on top of that, how do I not only rest, but how do I celebrate? Or talking to a person who is a schoolteacher and is just a little bit away from retiring. It’s time now when your days are more your own, how do you rest? How do you employ the Sabbath principle, which includes celebrating the joy of it all? I think there are a lot of people who are like, I am. I don’t know how to do this. And you feel like, wow, I just can’t seem to put it together in my head. So, that’s why I’m asking you.

Karen:     All the retiree’s dilemma of finally retiring and then thinking, “Now what do I do?”

David:     Yeah, now what do…

Karen:     Now, what do I do with these days and these moments?

David:     I don’t have that, although I am saying I don’t want to take on another job. I know I’ll be asked because that’s just about my life. And I’m totally capable of saying no. But I’d like to have a happy dance.

Karen:     That’s a wonderful description.

David:     I don’t know how to do that.

Karen:     How to orchestrate your own happy dance. Well, I think one of the things that is helpful for all of us is the fact that God knows what we have done. And very often we have done things that He’s put on our heart to do, that were hard tasks to do, that other people don’t appreciate. And we’ll probably forget. They may sort of recognize it for a little bit of time now. Some people have done extraordinary things, and the next, or even their own generation, doesn’t know that they’ve done it. So, we need to, I think, bow before the Lord and say, “I’ve finished this task. I’ve lived long enough”, in your case to do it, I think I’ve done it really well.”

Now what? And to allow yourself to hear Him say, well done, good and faithful servant. And then just to let that word for all of us begin to have meaning. It’s not just a thought we have in our head. We have to sort of rest in that and luxuriate in the fact that the Lord thinks we’ve done a good job. The job He asks us to do, no matter if anyone else appreciates what we’ve done. And we have been faithful. I think that celebration begins with that recognition.

David:     Well, that’s helpful. I pray all the time, but I’ve never once said, “Lord, teach me how to celebrate.”

Karen:     You pray with a pencil. You’ve taught people how to do that, written about it.

David:     It’s usually a ballpoint pen.

Karen:     You pray with a ballpoint pen. I’ll stand corrected. But I think then when you’re listening to the Lord and saying, “What do you have to say about these years I’ve given, or this particular year I’ve given?” And then thoughts begin to come into your mind. Don’t rush on to the next prayer point. And you take your ballpoint pen, and you hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And you write that down, David.

And then sometimes when you’re in communication with Him and you’re listening to Him, I mean, it’s not a voice that shouts, the inner voice that speaks to our spirit. He has other things to say, for instance. And you have that impression that He’s trying to say, “No one could have done this as well as you have done it.” And you write that down.

So, you have a list of internal kinds of communicates that God is giving to you in a way that we don’t hear when we’re busy or when we’re rushing on to the next task. We give Him time to speak to us and we just listen for what He has to say. I think those are very powerful ways of celebrating.

I was just reading this article. Oh, it was probably the New Yorker. I can’t remember. I’ve been reading a lot of periodicals recently and talked about the divide in Ireland where you have the conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics. And one of the ways they have found that they can begin to heal these political divides is to have city-wide festivals. When everyone comes out, they stand in the street together and there’s a parade that goes past and that is the politically dividing thing. They’re in it together into this celebration, together this festival. And I think that was one of the reasons there were so many festivals in the Old Testament.

David:     There are a lot of them. They were built right into the year.

Karen:     Yeah, to celebrate the year.

David:     Usually, agricultural followings because they’re harvest.

Karen:     These were people who were more agrarian of the land during that time. But I do think there are ways that we need to communally celebrate and with our churches having many of them collapsed and their attendance because of the COVID-19 thing, we need to pick up as soon as we’re able and we feel comfortable with that vaccination level, for instance, and begin to do some celebrations. Maybe it’s just we got through COVID or maybe come help David celebrate that he’s finished a book and there’s no one here to cheer. We need you to come and cheer. You know something like that. We have to sort of jump into these things, these celebrations and provide them for ourselves, but also for one another. And I think that those are some things we can do now with being a little more COVID-19 relaxation going on in our culture.

David:    It’s important to understand and obey the scriptural principle of rest and celebration. Okay, it sounds kind of an interesting thing. I will report in.

Karen:     Okay.

David:     I will say, “God, you have to teach me how to happy dance.”

Karen:     Love it.

David:     I have office. I was raised where dancing was wrong. And maybe that’s a part of who I’m-

Karen:     …what your problem is.

David:     Because I never learned how to dance.

Karen:     Just two-stem and you never learned how to do anything.

David:     I should go back to that Irish. If I could do any dance, I would dance like the Irish where they keep their hands down. It was just their legs that moved like 60. What if you saw me just happy dancing?

Karen:     Back down the hallway.

David:     Down the stairs.

Karen:     We need to work at finding ways to celebrate our accomplishments.

David:     It’s a part of the Sabbath principle.

Karen:     Yeah, it’s a part of the Sabbath principle. We don’t generally think of the Sabbath principle that way, but this is really why God put the Sabbath principle, I believe, one of the ways. He put it into effect so that we would celebrate our own accomplishments and the accomplishments of one another. It’s an extraordinary idea, isn’t it?

David:     Would you mind if I would like to read just a little bit?

Karen:     Oh, I’m dying to hear what you’ve read. This is from your book.

David:     Yeah.

Karen:     And what is your working title?

David:     Well, it’s Prayer Vigilantes.

Karen:     Prayer Vigilantes. So, let’s end with this. Reading a little bit from David’s book, we’re all going to listen to this.

David:     This is not about prayer vigilantes. I probably should have chosen another section. But anyway, the book is on the great need for a movement of God’s Holy Spirit.

Karen:     And that comes as we know historically, if you examine history through these prayer bases, these extraordinary prayer bases, they begin to be raised up all over.

David:     Yeah, revival, V-I-V words are life words. Viva to life, you know. So that’s the under-grading theme of the book. We need to see God work in a special way and renewing, reviving.

Karen:     Well, you finished your book. I’m listening to you read a couple of paragraphs, but so is everyone else. So go to it, Mom.

David:     A couple of paragraphs. I’ve got four pages here. No, I’m not going to read them all. I picked out little sections.

Karen:     Okay.

David:     That would be long enough.

Most Christians would love to experience more God’s presence. That’s what happens in revival. True revival is always marked by an overwhelming sense of the presence of the Lord. When a church is touched by revival, its members act just as they would if Jesus were physically present in the sanctuary week after week. Authentic revival in a home result in family members behaving as though Jesus were their house guest. And if Jesus were bodily present with you throughout your week as you went to work, talked on the phone, paid your bills, relaxed at home. Over time, you would either experience incredible personal revival, or you would say, I’m really not comfortable with this arrangement. I need more space between us, Jesus.

This overwhelming sense of God’s presence makes life all it was intended to be. Recall how the Lord was intimately involved with Adam and Eve. The Bible tells us that God walked with this couple in the cool of the day, but sin caused a breach in God’s relationship with his creation. Adam and Eve tried to hide from his presence and soon were banished from the garden. They lost the paradise privilege of intimate communion with God. How sad.

However, the Lord still made his presence known to those who sought him. Noah received specific instructions from him, Abraham bargained with him to save a city, Moses encountered him in the burning bush, but it wasn’t until centuries later that the Lord physically walked with human beings again. The Son of God took on flesh and lived on earth for over 30 years. Matthew tells us that Jesus was Emmanuel, which means God with us. Jesus stated his purpose for being on earth. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full, as what revival is all about.

In the rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar, the crowd sang, What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s happening? As word gets around that a Nazarene teacher is performing extraordinary miracles among the Jewish people. Despite its numerous flaws, this production has captured something churchgoers often miss. Jesus was big news. If you haven’t yet thought about it, you need to connect Jesus coming on earth with the start of the phenomenal spiritual revival.

Even though the ministry of this young rabbi was brief, his teachings swept across Israel like a prairie fire. The Gospel accounts are filled with crowds, miracles, changed lives, and numerous evidences of the presence of the Lord. The spiritual life of the true people of God was once again rich and meaningful, because his one and only son had obediently taken on human flesh. When revival touches the people of God, it creates a buzz.

God is still in the business of making his presence known to his people. Those who long for the closeness of the Lord will find great fulfillment in times of revival. During the Great Awakening in 1735, the earliest widespread revival in America, Jonathan Edwards, wrote, “The town seemed to be full of the presence of God. It was never so full of love or so full of joy and yet so full of distress.” I would say, because some weren’t comfortable with God’s closeness as it was then.

Just a reminder of what it is we want to come to the Lord for. Life is not really what we would like it to be for a lot of people in this land. It has a lot of pain, a lot of struggles, you know. But to see God’s presence come in and to see people walking with him conscious of him, that’s the day I long for.

I think I know it in my life. I think I know it in my life. But I know it in my life more in the obedient sense than I know it in the delightful sense, or the happy-dance sense.

Karen:     Sounds like this could be a really interesting 85th year for you.

David:     We’re really converse about it. I thought I’ll talk to my wife about it and now I get past talking with Karen about it. I got to talk to God about it. And maybe some people listening to us say, “Wow, maybe I need to talk to God about this little bit more struggle and not nearly enough happy-dance going on.”

Karen:     That’s great, honey.

Outro:     You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2021 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.