Shaun Groves
It feels like a commandment, a hassle, a major interruption.
God must have forgotten: I’m important. There’s a lot of stuff I need to get done, stuff only I can do well. I’ve got bills to pay, a wife to impress, a boss to wow, meals to prepare, floors to mop, bathrooms to clean, fleas to kill, grass to mow, a dryer to fix, songs to write, words to post, kids to shuttle, kids to bathe, kids to feed, kids to…and I’m supposed to waste a whole day on what?
A Hebrew, a few thousand years ago, spent decades of his life chained to other sweaty Hebrews, mixing mud and hay to make bricks. Then one day this guy Moses showed up, and it started raining frogs and pharaoh untied God’s people, set them “free”, then chased them across the Red Sea. On the other side they nearly starved to death and then spent years and years wandering uncharted territory, wilderness, desert. Every day they packed up their tents, walked for miles and set up camp again when the sun set.
Packing, moving, unpacking. Packing, moving, unpacking.
Every.
Day.
“Take a day off. Stay put. Rest.”
If I lived like a Hebrew the command would feel like a gift.
No protesting. No cheating my way around and out of it. No wondering “What am I going to do all day?”
But that is my life. Isn’t it?
Wandering in a wilderness of others’ expectations, deadlines, and to-do lists all week.
“Take the day off. Stay put. Rest.”
A gift.
Holy. Different from all other days.
Rest. No striving. No connection backward or forward to other days and their demands. No tweaking last week. No preparation for next. No laptop. No cell phone. No.
No cheating.
No guilt.
Rest.
God’s gift to nomads.
Lloyd says:
That “rest” is even better when experience and observed in the way God commanded/intended. (Isaiah 58:13,14) 😉
Marla Taviano says:
Amen.
Chris Sullivan says:
Okay, so what does rest mean? What are we supposed to do on the Sabbath?
“It feels like a commandment, a hassle, a major interruption.” if you take it seriously but I think most of us just dismiss it. We forget about it or ignore it. I can’t say it is something I really think about a lot or have made an effort to understand. I need to change that and be more intentional.
Dave Lewis says:
great message…currently going through a study and teaching/sermon series on the ten commandments. Thanks for the fresh perspective
Kim says:
We intentionally set aside work on Sundays and won’t even go to the store. We always order a pizza and allow the boys to get a soda to make it a special type of day. However, now we’ve found that it has really become more of a hedonistic day–a day heaped with expectations of nothingness or pursuing only what we want. I think we’ve missed the mark a bit.