Being Religious About Shabbat Means Connecting With God

Being Religious About Shabbat Means Connecting With God https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/09/05/being-religious-about-shabbat-means-connecting-with-god/

Many people today sneer at keeping Shabbat. To them, Shabbat observance smacks of everything that’s wrong with religion.  As someone who started keeping the Sabbath so my new Torah-observant friends would eat in my house, I was dragged into Shabbat observance kicking and screaming.
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Until you care about every tiny detail in your relationship with God, Shabbat is just a bunch of annoying restrictions. It’s religion. And in those early years, the only thing harder was that Fridays had to be spent in the kitchen the entire day — winter, spring, summer, fall.
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I can tell you unequivocally that now, so many years later, Shabbat actually feels different. Maybe it’s that I don’t have to entertain all those kids anymore. Maybe it’s the pleasure I have in knowing that I hung in there for Him, even though it was so hard for me.
Or maybe it’s that I appreciate that Shabbat is God’s favorite day of the week. It’s the day that’s closest to the way life will be for us in the Messianic era, when we will perceive Godliness effortlessly.
That’s why I’m trying lately to light my candles early, even before sundown. Some people say it’s a mitzvah to do this. It’s also my way of showing God that, finally, I want more Shabbat in my life, not less.