"Otium Sanctum" is latin for "holy leisure"....church Fathers put a great emphasis on "Otium Sanctum"...on the ability to be at peace in the midst of what often is a turbulent reality.
Perhaps more so in the last few days then ever before in my life do I feel the need for "holy leisure"...for peace in the midst of a world that seems to spin faster every moment. Often I think we just want to escape from the turbulence; to stop our lives from spinning any faster; but we can't can we? Life continues to spin...there is really very little in our lives that we have control of...and even those things we control, we usually just mess up. So what do we do? We can't escape, we can't control...so we must endure.
The Bible talks about endurance a lot...We are never promised a turbulence free life (quite the opposite in fact)...BUT...we are promised peace in the midst of it. Jesus in John 14:27 says: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."
This peace that Christ gives, is found ONLY in Christ himself...it's the same peace that Paul says "surpasses all understanding" (Phil 4:7) And notice Jesus didn't say you will have no troubles and no reason to be afraid....but what he is saying is that even when trouble comes, you have his peace which will be in you through the midst of it.
If you have the life of Christ in you...NOTHING can seperate you from Him, and the peace that he gives.
Holy leisure can be yours in Christ...
Hey Kell,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this one...I needed to hear this today. Yesterday I was just thinking that life just spins out of control where you can't do anything about it. You try to control some aspects and others just show you that you really can't control any part. Like not understanding everything with Cliff, or why $ is such an issue when you just want to do good things or why some days, things just seem to go wrong...holy leisure is what we need then. To rest on God and know He is in control when things seem out of control. Thanks for the insight.
Love you!