“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” (Genesis 2:2-3)
Something tells me the Glorious Almighty God didn’t need to rest. But He knew we would. So he set a pattern from the beginning of creation: six days of work, followed by a day of rest. He blessed this day and made it holy. Later in Exodus 20:8-11, he made this pattern into a command:
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter… For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
According to Adele Calhoun, “God did not intend for life to be all effort, so he punctuated each week with twenty-four hours of sabbath rest, during which people could remember what life is about and who it is for.” (Calhoun 43) The word “Sabbath” is related to a Hebrew root that means “cease” or “stop.” God commanded His people to cease from their labor, so they could rest, refresh, and refuel. He had set His people free from slavery in Egypt. As children of God, they were no longer bound to work non-stop like slaves. God gave them the gift of rest, a day to cease from working and to honor Him. In the Old Testament, Jews followed the pattern of setting apart the seventh day to keep it holy. (Calhoun 43)
God must have known our “Do It All” tendency when He chose to rest. I use to hate Monday’s, because my weekends were jammed packed with activity. I hated hearing the alarm and I would feel it in the pit of my stomach. We packed our weekends with kids’ sports, house cleaning, grocery shopping, and time with friends. Sundays were a blur. I’d make pancakes for breakfast, take my daughter to horse back riding lessons, come home, get ready and go to church, go out with friends afterwards, and return home at 5 or 6:00 pm. Then at 7:00, I’d sit down with my planner and all of our textbooks to plan out my school week.
Today life looks different. Our kids one of my kids graduated from high school and that leaves two teens at home. We enjoy our hobby farm, but it is a lot of work. I still seem to fill my weekends with a plethora of activities that can leave me exhausted on Monday morning. Your life probably looks different than mine, but I bet you get as tired and stressed as I do when your weekend is overloaded.
When we set aside Sundays for rest and worship, we follow the healthy rhythm God established for us, and we can start a new week on Monday refreshed instead of exhausted. If your job requires you to work on Sunday, ask the Lord for creativity and discipline to set aside another Sabbath time during your week. Whether our Sabbath is Sunday or another day, we can trust God to bless our time of rest and make us effective when we return work. For physical health and spiritual well-being, we need rest. Rest refuels and re-energizes us to work more effectively later. When we’re rested physically, we deal better with stress and busy schedules. When we take time to refuel spiritually, we’re better equipped to deal with challenges and trials that will always be part of our lives.For more books/Bible studies shop my author page: www.amazon.com/author/jessicalinhart
