GENESIS 2:2-3 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Omnipotent, all-powerful, eternal-well-of-strength God rests in Genesis 2:2. After six days or six million years of work, was God so tuckered out that he had to kick back in a hammock, sip some sweet tea and dab the sweat from his brow? Were his batteries drained, his muscles sore, his body sapped of its strength?

I don’t know is probably the safest answer.

But I’m wondering. What if God didn’t rest from exhaustion but from satisfaction?

“It is good.”

After six days or six million years, God rested like an artist stepping away from a just-filled canvas with a smile on his face, knowing that one less brush stroke would be too few and one more would be a mess.

Some say the word “rest” in Genesis 2 is translated from a Hebrew word that can mean “leave alone.” Could it be that God’s satisfaction with a world made “good” freed him to leave that world alone? So he let this planet of ours take a spin around the sun without intervening?

He blessed that day – gifted it, made it holy, different from all other days before or after: a day of satisfaction.

I’m always working because I’m never satisfied. At night I stay up dissecting the day and fretting over the next, sifting through the moments I wish I could do-over, prognosticating tomorrow’s troubles. Even when my body isn’t in motion my mind is still working away, tweaking the past and perfecting the future before it even arrives. I’m a bundle of anxiety and regret.

It’s good? Good enough to leave alone?

Taking a sabbath requires me to be satisfied with myself, with my reputation, with my income and the amount of stuff I own, with the finished and half-done and not-even-started. With God. With the life he’s made me – so far.

Satisfied enough to put down the brush, step back and smile.

“It is good.”