Rest: God's Prescription

Writing about rest, coming from a can-do culture with a let-things-slide personality and heading to the nation that gave the world a term for "death through overexertion"*, requires some labor. It is akin to describing the joys of playing music to someone who has never picked up an instrument and has no vocabulary or apparent use for the idea.

Yet in the handful of years I have been seeking to actively take Sabbath rests one day a week (generally Sunday), I know that rest is not only Biblical but extremely blessed. May this short refresher (ha!) of a review encourage you to more deeply depend on and glorify God.

Why do we rest? There are two variants of the same command given to God's people in the journey to Israel.

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
(Exodus 20.8-11)

"Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day."
(Deuteronomy 5.12-15)

The similarities predominate: it's God's will that His people keep this day holy; it's not merely for their own benefit but also that of their family, dependents (employees perhaps comes closest in modern terminology) and livestock.

But the rationale differs. The original command from the Lord on Mt. Sinai points back to the creation order that He set in motion--we were created to reflect God's ownership of all things and imitate Him in this rhythm. The repetition by Moses in one of his farewell addresses is equally of the Holy Spirit, pointing back to the redemption from Egypt. In that country, the Hebrews were given over to continual, unbroken labor; now and in the new land God is giving them, they are to remember that His rescue of them means that their identity isn't defined by their work, but His buying of them through a definite act of salvation.

My question to us: Is what we call 'rest' merely an interruption of activity? The Lord clearly intends that our down time would remember Him: His creative power, displayed from the beginning until now, and our redemptive history.

In future posts until we get word that our visa paperwork is on the way, I hope to explore this topic a bit more. At the very least it will help me think a little more clearly on the subject once the ministry floodgates open overseas.


*過労死 or karōshi; I knew someone out there would also care for this parenthetical detail

P.S. The idea of keeping the Sabbath weekly as not only feasible but desirable for a college student came from a conversation I had with Lisa Chu (now Ro) and was further encouraged by the Fulton family.