Do You Need A Good Sabbath Rest – Read This Prayer

I posted this prayer on the Facebook page Light for the Journey this a few years back. It is a beautiful prayer and I wish I knew who wrote it. As you enter this weekend and prepare for your own Sabbath rest, sit quietly for a few moments and rest your own soul. Read the prayer aloud and let its truth seep into your soul. Sit with it. Breathe in deeply. Read it through again. What is God saying to you about your need for Sabbath rest?

God whose labor led to light and growth,
darkness and nurturing,
creatures of sea and all crawling things on the earth;
God whose labor led to all life and all beauty;
God whose labor culminated in Sabbath rest,
laying down the beautiful and hard work of that week:

help us also to lay down
the labor of our weeks
in Sabbath rest.

Help us to meet in silence and song,
hearing your Word speaking anew to our needful spirits.
Help us to release our many cares
into your and one another’s keeping.
Help us to find renewal from our burdens,
the sorrows and fears that weigh on us,
the tragedies marring the world’s beauty.

Guide us to Sabbath rest, O God—
And once we have experienced its settling—
once we have been refreshed in its healing—
lead us into work once again:
the work of healing others,
and co-creating the Shalom of your dreaming.

Author unknown