Remember

     Bryan leaves the Westminster Larger Catechism lying open on his dresser, beside the bed.  He reads a question or two a day.  Someday he may finish.  The book is not really in the way.  I moved it once to dust. Clean laundry, conveniently, can rest on its pages.  I do know he's working on it, because the pages change.

     Yesterday, on a laundry run, the italics within Question 121 caught my eye.  "Why is the word Remember set in the beginning of the fourth commandment?"  As in, "Remember the sabbath-day...." This is a thorough document, isn't it?  When you've read through Exodus, or seen a Ten Commandments sign in someone's yard, have you ever paused and asked yourself, "Why did God include the word Remember?"  Me?  Never.

              How am I helped by the commandment of God?  I read that there is a great benefit to me in Remembering the Sabbath.  The work of Remembering helps me to prepare and keep it, with an ongoing "thankful remembrance" of God's creation and my redemption.   But God also reminds me to Remember the Sabbath, because I am so ready to forget. The Westminster Divines wrote, " it cometh but once in seven days, and many worldly businesses come between, and too often take off our minds from thinking of it, either to prepare for it, or to sanctify it."  (If you can't read the language of the seventeenth century, that can be remedied, but that's a subject for another day.)  I do a lot of washing, folding, correcting, cooking, sweeping, cleaning, reading, calling, and yeah, I might not think about the Sabbath much.  But I'm thinking about it today.

     Confession:  I'm not a strict Sabbatarian.  So when I think of "keeping the Sabbath," my mind jumps right to the rules I may or may not keep.  Right there is my first mistake.  God has blessed me with a day in which I can delight in worshipping Him.   I can rejoice in knowing Him.  Do I want to miss that?