{"id":679,"date":"2015-11-21T19:46:56","date_gmt":"2015-11-22T02:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pastormathis.com\/?p=679"},"modified":"2015-11-21T19:46:56","modified_gmt":"2015-11-22T02:46:56","slug":"the-lost-art-of-sleeping-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/21\/the-lost-art-of-sleeping-in\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Art of Sleeping In"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cRuff!! Ruff!\u201d<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>\u201cWhat the\u2026,\u201d exclaimed a weary-eyed sleeper. Fumbling like a drunken bum, he finally found the clock. His brain stared at the devise until it registered the true state of affairs: \u201cIt\u2019s 6:00 in the morning!\u201d With a heavy sigh, he turned toward the enticing pillow\u2026<\/p>\n

Rummmble! Rooaar!! The screaming, shattering chainsaw chases a terrified man. Running with all his might, he evades the chainsaw, only to see it crashing through another door\u2026and wakes him up to the familiar sound of a lawn mower. This time it\u2019s 7 AM.<\/p>\n

Screeching, screaming and shouting, the local street urchins abort his attempted Saturday morning sleep-in at 7:30.<\/p>\n

What is the point of sleeping in? No one else does. I seem to remember my parents sleeping in on at least one weekend day. They would warn my sister and me to be quite lest we feel a wrath that would pale the likes of Khan.<\/p>\n

However, in the last few years, if we stay up late on a Friday night (which I thought most people our age did, with or without children), it only makes sense that we would try to sleep in a little on Saturday. And I don\u2019t mean until 10:30 either.<\/p>\n

Why the change? Could it be that more people are trying to busy themselves these days? Or that they carry the weekday rush into the weekend? The six-year old has to attend pee-wee league, the backyard has to have a new deck and so many things must be accomplished by noon on Saturday. Naturally, both Saturday and Sunday are \u201cget-things-done\u201d days because the rest of the week is filled with extended work hours, meetings, veterinarian appointments, sporting events, piano lessons and what-nots.<\/p>\n

Rest is lost. Community is gone. And the church and Sabbath are no longer central to the family units.\u00a0 Even for Christians.<\/p>\n

In America there is no Sabbath rest. The Gospel is meaningless, so the Sabbath day is meaningless (Heb. 4:1ff) and the church is pushed into the periphery. Work, sports, play, house and whatever else dominates our life-styles, squeezes out the church in our daily planners.\u00a0 We live in one of the most unchurched cities in America. And we see that every Sunday morning when by 8:30 we are ready to drive to church, while the neighbors ready their lawnmowers, hedge-clippers and motorbikes.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Americans are becoming busier and less rested as they attempt to drown-out the call of the Gospel. Or perhaps I\u2019m simply asking too much to be able to sleep in just a little.<\/p>\n

Nah\u2026<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cRuff!! Ruff!\u201d \u201cWhat the\u2026,\u201d exclaimed a weary-eyed sleeper. Fumbling like<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[53,44],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","tag-discipline","tag-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastormathis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}