When I graduated high school, my first attempt to find a next step for myself was an art school in Pittsburgh. About six month in, it was becoming apparent that the program wasn't panning out and I couldn't actually afford to stay in my Brentwood apartment and I was quickly running out of options. I had taken up drinking, and smoking, and weed, and none of it seemed a sufficient escape on the night when I found myself really confronted with the possibility that this was a failed venture. I took a walk to clear my head after trying to self-medicate and think through the details, and on the way back I found myself standing in front of a brick Presbyterian church on Brownsville Road at around three in the morning. I went up and tested the doors, which were unsurprisingly locked. I don't know why I felt the need to bother, I hadn't really been serious about faith for a few years and I wouldn't be again for another year or so, but something had been stuck in my mind that this was a place to go. A place of refuge. I sat on the steps and vented to God for a while, and then went home and passed out. The next day, I found I was comfortable with the decision I needed to make and was done with school and moved out within a week.

We still call the heart of a church building the sanctuary. We understand the notion that this is a place where people can take refuge, can find rest, can encounter the God who provides and protects. Is that the image we present to the world around us? If I had not grown up in a church, would I have had the notion, just from our culture or the churches in my town, that the steps of that brick building were a place where I could sit and seek comfort and wisdom? Do the people in our communities see our churches as havens?

A large part of the answer comes down to how they see us. The fact is, no matter how warm and welcoming we make our church buildings, if our neighbors do not feel welcomed by us, they will not want to go to the place we frequent. This is especially true if they know that our church is where we get our notions for what it means to be a good neighbor. If our God is a refuge for the oppressed, and we are imaging God in our lives, should we not be a refuge for the oppressed?

We may be tempted to see the first line of Hebrews 13 and interpret the rest as only applying to other Christians, other members of our known body. But then who are the strangers? These are not people who attend the same church as us that we just don't know, after all, sometimes they are apparently angels. Should we assume that the prisoners are only those in prison for the sake of the gospel? Or that the ill-treated are only those ill-treated because of their faith? I submit that the same God who told Israel to show hospitality to the foreigner who happened to be among them, and then told us to show hospitality to the stranger, means for us to show His love to all those who cross our paths and to remember those who are hidden from our sight.

Our churches can never be welcoming places if the people who occupy them are not welcoming people. We must consider what our words, and actions, and social media posts say about our willingness to be hospitable to the stranger, the alien, the orphan and the widow, the people who surround us that we may not even realize are watching.

On the way to school this morning, I listened to the audio version of the Book of Joshua, and the first couple chapters of Judges. It was a difficult morning, I worked a closing shift last night which didn't get me into bed until nearly 1 and, thanks to my commute on Tuesdays, I was in the car again by 5:30. I was trying desperately to keep up with my classes, and when I had the chance to take a brief nap in the afternoon, I had trouble falling asleep and ended up working on a project for a study group instead. It was all running, and while I know that I am better prepared to do devotionals later in the day, I didn't intend to push it until 10 tonight. But that's what I did.

I prayed this evening, and found my mind bending toward the desire to be better about spending time in the word and in seeking after God and His will in all that I do. The hymn I found and prayed clicked well with this, being focused on the desire to do the work Jesus wills one to do. With Joshua dealing a great deal with serving the commands of the Lord, and Judges picking up that refrain right from the beginning, I was feeling a trend. And that was great, I thought, but I wasn't considering how none of what was going through my mind in that moment really said what that will and command would be in my current situation.

I decided in my reading today to begin using a devotional I'd picked up last month at a sale a couple towns over, which included a reading plan. So I read the passages included there, as well as the ones listed for the day on this year's Catholic liturgical calendar because I just like the idea of a liturgical calendar and still haven't figured out how to read the Book of Common Prayer I was gifted last year. Psalm 125 talked about God's people standing firm and God protecting them and the blessings He has for those who seek His commands rather than their own "crooked ways."

But the rest of my reading suddenly began to take a specific turn. It included almost all of Nehemiah 13, in which Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to find some guy living in the temple, the priests breaking their oaths through marriage, and people just generally profaning the Sabbath. I noticed, in a way that I never had before, that not only does Nehemiah drive out the merchants and ensure the gates are closed for the Sabbath, but once that work is settled, he sets the priests to guard the gates "to keep the Sabbath holy." He reminds the people that they were originally driven out of the land, and the city destroyed, in large part because they failed to keep the Sabbath. He makes it a very important part of his restoration of the city, and then sets priests to guard the gates. This struck me, but I couldn't place why yet. There is a certain degree to which I still haven't.

The last bit of reading was Hebrews 3, in which the author notes the supremacy of Christ to Moses, and a warning that the people who left Egypt with Moses did not enter God's rest due to disbelief. I didn't get to Hebrews 4, that's on tomorrow's reading list, but I know where this thought process goes. Moses gave commands, one of which was to honor the Sabbath, but God promised through Moses a greater rest to come. The people took this as the promised land, which to a degree was true, but even Joshua points to a coming rest. God's rest was not yet fully realized, and even what had been realized was lost as they were taken from the land, forcing Nehemiah to enforce the institute of the Sabbath and place it among the tasks of the very people who had been commanded to serve in the temple. We can find rest in Christ because He has done the work we could not, He has brought us into the people of God, He has granted us peace and comfort and deliverance from sin and fear.

If I'm going to follow the commands of my God, as I prayed and read and pondered all day, then I must obey the command to rest in Him. He doesn't need me to run around all day, to put off my reading and my sleep. God has work for me, but He has decided that this work must be done by a refreshed, peaceful, loving servant and not from a rushed fool. God is not a taskmaster who will push and push and demand and demand, He is the source of all comfort who promises to give His strength and to carry my burdens and to bring me to the place where I can enjoy Him in true rest forever. The Sabbath is a taste, sweet as honey, of a day of rest that will never end; but we can know some of that rest now, and are commanded to do so.

These were wonderful words to a tired man.