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Sabbath Rest

By July 1, 2012August 30th, 2022Lost in Translation

It’s already ten o’clock and it doesn’t seem that I have done very much today, but I am exhausted. But on second thought, June 30th marks the end of the second calendar quarter of the year, and we are already 50% of the way to 2013. In fact, we are closer to the next Christmas than we are to the last one, and that’s a tough one for me to come to terms with, as it seems that Christmas was just a little while ago. The 4th of July is coming up quickly and then we will be in the heat of summer, although it already feels like the temperatures are there.

But the end of each month always signifies a huge workload for me. There is the requisite month end billing and then, every third month, we have to file the quarterly tax deposits and the accompanying reports. Since I work alone and don’t have administrative help, Janet and I finish up all the month end things together. That’s how we spent most of the day today.

Coupled with all the recent stuff that has happened to us as a family, and Janet returning from Williamsburg yesterday, it seems like we are all working every day just to try and catch up. Frankly, that’s just not healthy, and it’s certainly not biblical. Because God wants us to rest, and even when God created the heavens and the earth, recorded in the beginning of Genesis, He rested on the seventh day.

Now, the Sabbath rest doesn’t have to be on Sunday. You can pick any day to kick back and put aside the work for a day. Believe me, it will be there tomorrow. But totally abstaining from work one day a week is really difficult for me. Either I feel compelled to catch up on office work, or head out into the yard to prune bushes, wash lawn furniture or fix the hoses. I think that I try to convince myself that I can rest at certain times throughout the week, but that isn’t the case most of the time. I just run and run and run; kind of like the Energizer bunny.

Even my friends and business associates will call me and ask if I am busy before they start to talk with me – I guess that I sort of have a reputation for keeping busy. But I think I would feel better, and maybe not so tired, if I just took the concept of the Sabbath rest a little more seriously. In fact, I am convinced that God will provide us a Sabbath rest if we aren’t smart enough to do it on our own. And I don’t think that a health crisis or some other mandatory down time is the way that I would like to spend the Sabbath – or longer, if you know what I mean.

So, with the thought of rest in mind, I am keeping this post short this evening. The verse for tonight is from Exodus 20:10-13, “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.”

Notice that God even blessed the day of rest. It was the first day that was blessed in the Bible. My encouragement tonight is that if you don’t already do it, you may want to celebrate the Sabbath with a day or rest and worship to the LORD. My prayer is that you will be smart enough to obey the Old Testament command to rest one day a week. I have to say that when I have done that, I have really felt better the rest of the week. So, until tomorrow, have a great day in the Lord, and I wish you grace and peace…

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