REFUEL and REFRESH

When my friend Kamala asked me if I could give her and her teenage son, Noah, a ride to the before-church worship practice, I was happy to oblige. The first couple of times I did so I simply skipped my Sunday morning routine of driving through McDonald’s to grab breakfast on the go so that we would arrive at the church on time.

We rarely managed to do so. I would almost always show up at her place later than I anticipated, only to find Noah sitting by the living room window waiting for my arrival, mentally rehearsing the speech he was going to give me on the subject of punctuality. I also severely missed my weekly sausage biscuit and mocha treat; the morning just needed that jumpstart. I wanted it back as a part of my Sabbath experience, but I couldn’t justify an additional stop when I was already running so late. Amazingly, it was the lure of my restored breakfast routine that got me out of bed early enough from that point on to once more make it a part of my day.  And what joy there was when week after week I was able to deny Noah the pleasure of lecturing me!

Eventually Kamala joined an early morning prayer team and got a ride from a partner who was similarly headed that way, but I kept my alarm clock tuned in to the earlier setting, giving myself a few minutes to sit and enjoy my food in the car instead of simply gulping it down and rushing into the building. As I was doing so recently I happened to take a closer look at the bag I’d been handed through the drive-thru window. On the side I read the phrase “Refuel and refresh”, and I smiled to think how perfectly they described my Sunday mornings in general and the correlation between my breakfast habit and worship experience.

Only on that that one day of the week do I allow my taste buds the treat described above. Caloric expenditure aside, my weekly work schedule is also such that I usually eat breakfast at home before heading into town at a later hour of the day.  My weekly stop at McDonald’s is a way of setting Sundays apart from the other days that end in “y”, and the emotional uplift of my morning routine sets the tone for the hours that follow.

Attending the Sunday morning church service is another practice I’m devoted to. The encouragement and love found in fellowship with other believers as well as the guidelines for successful living that come in the pastor’s sermon are treats that don’t come on every day of the week, and I’ve learned to take advantage of this opportunity to refuel and refresh myself spiritually as well as physically.

And yet it’s not just something I do for myself alone, as my food stop is. I come in to receive that which I will later give away to those who live life alongside of me and might need a bite of spiritual sustenance along the way. I want to be able to hand them what they are hungry for as freely as I receive the goodness of God that makes every morning the start of a very special day.

“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the Lord honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord; And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
(Isaiah 58:13-14 NKJV)