The gift of rest

Summer is the season of vacations and downtime. A season to breathe a little deeper, sleep a little later, and linger a bit longer with those you love. Unfortunately, for many of us, those "lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer" look no different than the bleak and blah days of winter. According to a 2017 report, only 23% of employees take all of their available time off. That means less than one of four people are not using the benefits they earned. Of those who do take time off, 66% indicated that they work while on their vacation time. (Kate Ashford, "Why Americans Aren't Taking Half of Their Vacation Days," Forbes, May 31, 2017, www.forbes.com/sites/kateashford/2017/05/31/vacation/#1c4d589d726a.) Our puritan ancestors would be proud of our national work ethic. But would God be pleased?

The Bible certainly values work. The ability to work is a gift of God. At the same time, the Bible also presses us to rest. Just as some are prone towards laziness, others are just as prone to never stopping. Neither of which is what God desires for us.

The Bible calls a designated time of rest, Sabbath. Jesus in Mark 2:23-28 is questioned about why his disciples were not keeping the Sabbath laws. That dialogue gives us some pointers as to why sabbath matters.

Sabbath is a gift. Sabbath is first addressed in creation. Following six days of work, the Lord designated and blessed the seventh day as a day of rest. The Sabbath. A day, as he modeled, to stop working. Intentionally stopping, resting, is a gift of God.

The gift of Sabbath is also an expectation. After leaving Egyptian slavery, in which they worked every day, the Hebrew people are again instructed to partake in Sabbath. They are warned to keep this expectation because while they were enslaved, they were forced to labor daily. Keeping Sabbath is now not only a gift but an expectation that reminds them they are no longer under the rule of another.

Sabbath, taking time to intentionally stop and one day a week engage in something that restores, is a reminder that there is a God and you, nor your schedule, is He.

Receive the gift of stopping. Impose the expectation to stop. In our culture that goes every minute of every day, the idea of stopping is almost non-sensical. Yet, a weekly time to rest and prevents us from growing weak, disheartened, and broken.