Day 25 – The Seventh-Day Honeymoon
Day 25 – The Seventh-Day Honeymoon
Jacob and Sarah enjoyed a 7-day honeymoon in their own private suite while friends and family celebrated their union. I can’t even imagine that today; who could take off 7 days for every family wedding? There are like 50+ people in my immediate family! No one would ever work. Not to mention feeding all those folks for 7 days…It would be nice though, to give such a position of honor to a relationship. God invites us to a Seventh-Day Honeymoon each week.
God Gave Us a Seventh-Day Honeymoon
Come Away My Beloved…
As the Bride of Christ we too will have a honeymoon with our groom, for 7 years after he comes for us. However, you may not realize that our heavenly Father God, set up a plan for us to have a “honeymoon” with our groom every Seventh-day. He started the tradition at creation and called it the Sabbath; I call it the Seventh-Day Honeymoon. Not to be confused with the 7th day Adventist denomination.
My First Sabbath Experience
My personal concept of a honeymoon with Jesus began in the late 1990s with a group of college age women I led in a weekly Bible study. We spent months studying the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Bible and ended our study with a Sabbath retreat a Seventh-Day Honeymoon.
It was quite a deal for a bunch of college age girls. No cell phones or computers, no boyfriends, they had to take off work and stay the entire time; yep, you weren’t allowed to leave. I believe we had about 20 girls at that retreat. It was amazing. Each person did some homework and contributed to the Sabbath meal and the activities of our Sabbath. We had a beautifully set table complete with a menorah and a special Jewish prayer cloth. We gathered around a wonderful Sabbath meal enjoying the Sabbath blessings of a “spiritual mother and father”.
So Many Honeymoon-Like Similarities
This was my first “official” time to fully keep the Sabbath. Raised in a bible-believing, church going home, I had rarely missed a Sunday church service and even a Sunday evening service in my entire life. I always knew it was something I needed to do and definitely enjoy, but it never really “feels” like Sabbath to me.
There were so many elements of this Sabbath celebration that reminded me of a honeymoon. I began to see the Sabbath, not as a dreaded ritual that couldn’t possibly be kept in our modern times, but as a wonderful time of contentment, resting and relating with my savior, my groom.
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Preparation. A honeymoon takes lots of preparation and planning, and there is great anticipation and excitement involved. You don’t want to mess up your honeymoon plans, after all it’s right after the wedding…you want it to be perfect!
We experienced this in preparing for our Sabbath, Seventh-Day Honeymoon. We were not allowed to do any work at this Sabbath retreat. That meant everything had to be done ahead of time. This required we think about our Sabbath all week long, making sure we had everything we need and the people who depended on us were cared for in our absence.
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Anticipation. We spend more time dreaming about the wonderful honeymoon than we do experiencing it.
In the same way, we were excited to see what this Sabbath retreat would reveal about our savior, our groom and how it would change our lives. I don’t know about the others but I thought of this event daily.
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♥ Intimacy. The honeymoon is a time set aside for physical and emotional and hopefully spiritual intimacy. Someone transliterated intimacy to “In-to-me-see”. A time for the bride and groom to fully experience each other in every way. To reveal the true person and receive love.
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These 6 Activities provided great intimacy with Our Lord and each other:
♥ Remembering – Sharing what God did for us during the week and what God provided for us through Jesus Christ sacrifice on the cross.
♥ Rejoicing – We rejoiced together as each one shared the goodness of God letting go of sadness and mourning for a 24 hour period each week.
Sadness and mourning. “The Sabbath does not ‘do away’ with sadness and sorrow,” writes Pinchas H. Peli in The Jewish Sabbath, “it merely requires that all sadness be ‘tabled’ for one day so that we may not forget that there is also joy and happiness in the world and acquire a more balanced and hopeful picture of life.” Even mourning is suspended in order to rejoin the community for Sabbath. “The Sabbath, by its very being, comforts and heals.”(2)
♥ Repenting – Some of the “remembering” brought up past or even recent failures. Things we needed to repent of. We had some quiet time alone with our Lord to listen to His voice, repent of the 4 ways we break covenant in our flesh. These are the four forms of sin spoken of in the Bible. Two are against God and two are against people. Some of us also repented of generational sins we felt were holding us back in our covenant relationship.
The Bible mentions Iniquity, Trespasses, Transgression and Sin.
We break our covenant of being identified with Christ when we sin against others.
Iniquities – ways we were unjust or unfair to others, maybe in our judgements or in our actual relationships.
Trespasses – ways we crossed the line in our relationships and hurt other people.
We break our covenant of exchanging authority – the right to be our own boss – by taking matters into our own hands in willful sin against His authority in our lives.
Transgressions – out and out sinful rebellious choices.
Sin – missing the mark God has set for us, this might be as simple as not allowing Love to be our primary motive or as complex as not witnessing to someone when the opportunity arises. There are many ways we can miss God’s best for us.
♥ Renewing – This was done both privately in our time of repentance and some shared publicly in the group. Renewing our covenant for the week to come.
- Exchanging our individual identity with our covenant partner, the Bride of Christ, to reflect our identity as the beloved of God to those around us.
- Exchanging our authority to be the director of our own lives – giving God that authority and taking on the authority we have been given in Christ over personal sin and the sin we encounter.
♥ Receiving – We received the blessings of our covenant partner. We could freely open ourselves up to His grace and mercy because of the process of the weekend.
As we renewed the covenant for the week we received His protection, His provision and His possessions. We had confidence that our Covenanat partner would meet all our needs according to HIS riches and not our resources.
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♥ Resting – This is probably the most difficult for all of us. To stop and rest. It is possible because God asked us to do it. The religious Jews of today say this about Sabbath.
Shabbat is primarily a day of rest and spiritual enrichment. The word “Shabbat” comes from the root Shin-Beit-Tav, meaning to cease, to end, or to rest. (1)
How could I not rest in my body and my spirit after this time of rejuvenation with my groom?
Remembering and rejoicing at his goodness throughout my week. Repenting of ways that I broke covenant with Him, Renewing my Covenant vows and Receiving His provision, protection and possessions. My soul is quieted and I can rest.
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What a blessed time it was and as I recall these events I am summoned by my groom to join Him for a Seventh-Day Honeymoon every week. How about you?
Learn to live as the Bride of Christ. Dancing Through Life.
Resources
(1) http://www.jewfaq.org/shabbat.htm
(20 http://www.practicingourfaith.org/keeping-sabbath-ways-practice-ideas
About the Author: Celeste Davis, is a passionate follower of Jesus Christ with a heart to walk fully in Covenant with Him. As Founder of The Wellness Workshop, Celeste’s passion is to teach women and impact their families to “Be Nourished” as opposed to dieting or trying different life strategies. We nourish our bodies with God-Made Food, our Souls with God-Made Relationships and our Spirits with the Word of God and Prayer. More Info about Celeste.
