Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour 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
Following Jesus has its challenges, but it’s not all hard slog! I had the pleasure this morning of going on a podcast to talk about rest. I say a pleasure because it really is. In what other religion does its god tell people to have a weekly holiday? How many people realise that one of the ten commandments is to rest from work one day per week?
Or, putting it another way, when was the last time you thought of holiness as a state of rest?
Having a mandated holiday is appealing. Employees usually look forward to public holidays and long weekends. So why do we frequently ignore the Sabbath?
The podcast host, Moyo, spoke about how taking time off, to not work, makes her feel guilty, when she has so many things pressing on her. Sometimes I am loathe to let work go. Work can make me feel virtuous. Or it feels necessary. I think this or that has to be done – if it is to be, it’s up to me. Biblically, that’s rubbish. All the earth is the LORD’s. If it is to be it’s up to Him. Unless the Lord builds a house, the builders labour in vain. Jesus is the one who saves and preserves the world. Not me. I am not saved by works but by grace.
I can relax. I can trust God to have the world in hand. So let my Sunday be full of rest. Turn off the radio, shut down my computer, ignore my phone and listen to the birds. Let Sunday be set apart and unhurried. Let it be a Sabbath, full of headspace and God time.
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