Monday, May 4, 2009

Making Sunday The Best Day

I noticed one of my sisters blogged about the difficulty of getting up on some Sunday mornings. Boy could I relate to that! In fact, one of the seminars I led at the minister's wives conference in Nashville was "Making Sunday The Best Day." I actually chose this topic because it was something Doug and I discussed and worked on throughout our marriage.

We all know Exodus 20:8-10a (NIV) "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God." Although we know the verse, I think sometimes as minister's wives, we believe we are the exception to the rule! (I looked and could not find that exception verse)

I think we sometimes believe it is our day, or our husband's 'big day'. We all know it is the Lord's Day, but how do we actually practice that with all that our Sunday's hold?

I wish I could tell you we found the solution and solved this problem completely. The truth is, we did work at making Sunday the best day for our family, but it was a continual struggle. As we addressed this problem in our family, we did find some things that made it a special day for our entire family. Let me share a few ideas with you.

Organize! Don't you just hate that word? Organization is not my best thing, yet I found that if I prepared in advance for Sunday, it made it easier to worship and enjoy. I began on Monday preparing for the next Sunday. I planned what my children were going to wear (had a back up outfit ready) and made sure they were cleaned, pressed and ready to go.

Doug also included the boys in his personal preparation. He would share with them the topic of the sermon and ask for their opinions. They loved being included and felt they were helping him. It also caused them to be better listeners on Sunday, knowing they would be asked for suggestions.

Prayer time. Doug would always get the boys together on Saturday nights and ask them to pray for him. It was the sweetest of times, to hear each of them lift their dad up in prayer. (even when they asked God to help him not preach too long!)

These are just a few things we did to prepare for Sunday. I would love to hear your ideas. We so wanted our boys to love the Lord's day, even though it was often work for us.

Today think about what you need to do to get ready for next Sunday. Begin to look forward to worshiping our Lord with your family and your church.

1 comment:

Tara said...

Great ideas Karen . . Thanks. . .

One thing I have learned to do on Sundays . . . if only for a few minutes is to stop and rest . . . Whatever, HAS to be done CAN wait . . . It has been so freeing and restorative for me to simply STOP . . and know that HE is God. It really helps me put things into perspective and get my priorities straight . . .