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Rest and Work
Hello everyone!
Workers and Resters
All of us have been created to be workers and resters – not just one or the other. This of course is a pattern established by God at the beginning of time, six days of creating followed by God’s rest. This is then carried forward to the life of God’s people as a nation that respects boundaries.
Rest and the Environment
Israel’s law mandates rest on the sabbath and goes even further, saying land should be allowed to recover from growing crops every seven years. Even more profoundly every fifty years (so after seven times seven!) there were to be a year of jubilee, where debts were forgiven and the enslaved were to be set free.
And in the New Testament, Jesus reminds us that all of this is not meant to be a burden, another obligation to fulfil. The sabbath is made for us and our benefit, not the other way round!
The rest matters
All of this is a reminder that, amidst all the busyness and the different demands on our time, whether work, study or family that rest matters. If God can rest as part of creating, then we can rest too! As someone once said, the word ‘recreation’ should be written ‘re-creation’, a reminder that when we rest we ‘re-create’ ourselves.
Rest and Spirituality
Rest opens us up to God, who can restore us and ensure we live the life God intends for us, balanced between working and resting.
We can show that always working or always idling is not a Godly way of living and not what we are made for. So I hope in the weeks ahead you receive God’s gift of rest and find new ways to let God re-create you through recreation.
May you always remember that God’s intention for you includes rest as well as work!
Love, Nathan
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