Thursday, September 25, 2008

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Remember to Rest

We live in a society that is increasingly becoming a 24/7 non-stop world.  Everything is on and everything is going all of the time.  And, all of our technological advancements while increasing our productivity and what we are able to do, bring with them a subtle pressure to always be doing, always be connected, always be online.  Computers, cell phones, laptops, blackberrys, etc.  And then, there is just simply the demands of life which seem to increase all the time.  Households, we think, need two incomes just to survive.  Gone are the simpler times.  And even when we "relax," we are often working hard at our leisure.

God created us to work but also to rest.  He made our bodies so that they need rest, they need sleep each and every day.  We tend to push ourselves and see how little sleep we can get away with.  He also made us and even modeled for us the need to take one day a week as a day of rest.  How few of us actually do that?  When was the last time you could truly say that you took an entire day — 24 hours — and just rested?  Do we feel that we could do that, that we should do that, or would we feel guilty if we ever actually did that?  Wouldn't that be being lazy and unspiritual?  And so we continue to go, and do, and work, seven days a week.  And then we fall into bed at the end of each day exhausted and get to lie down for a couple of hours just to get up and do it all over again.

This should not be.  One of the ten commandments, the ten things that God considered most important for his people was this:

"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, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.  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" (Exodus 20:8-11).

God who never sleeps or even dozes off for a minute (Psalm 121:3-4), nevertheless modeled rest.  And he set aside a day on which he commanded, not suggested, that we rest.  This was not a time to do a little less work.  It was to do no work.  Not you or anybody in your family or anyone in your employ.  Even animals were to have a day off.  "You shall not do any work."  What happens to us when we choose to disobey what God has commanded?

In the Old Testament, the Sabbath was our Saturday.  And Jesus, born as he was into a Jewish culture, observed the Sabbath.  At the same time, he did not use the "do no work" command to avoid helping others.  That would be to negate one command of God to religiously keep another.  And Jesus response to the Sabbath should give us some indication of what is and what is not allowed.  Jesus said that a day of rest is a gift to us, not a confining thing (Mark 2:27).  The early church changed the day of rest to Sunday because that was the day of resurrection.  And, we have warrant from scripture that gives us permission to choose any day of the week to be our day of rest (see Romans 14:5-6).

The point of this is that we should not forget to remember to rest.  God commanded it not to bring us into bondage to a rule but because he knew what would be for our good.  It is not good to go non-stop seven days a week even if we are about ministry.  We all need to rest.  We need to get adequate rest each night.  Our bodies are the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17) and we dare not abuse his temple through overwork and not enough rest to keep it healthy.  We also need to take a day — choose which one works best for you — and not to do all of the work that we couldn't get to the rest of the week or to wear ourselves out with "leisure" activities.  No, this is time to focus on God and rest.  Take a day each week and do as Jesus said,

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).

Maybe you need to take the phone off the hook, or turn your cell phone off.  Turn the computer off or just go somewhere where you are disconnected from all of this stuff that demands our attention.  Come to me, Jesus says, and I will give you rest.  We were created to need that.  Would we be better at being human if we paid attention to the instruction manual that came with us?  Absolutely.  God knows all that you and I need to get done.  He also knows what he wants to accomplish.  And he knows that when we do things his way, they always work out better.  So, remember to rest.  It is God's way!

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