By the seventh day God had finished his work.
On the seventh day he rested from all his work.
God blessed the seventh day.
He made it a Holy Day Because on that day he rested from his work,
all the creating God had done - Genesis 2:2-4
As we grow older, our lives’trajectory may take turns we just did not expect; we may start to feel exasperated, exhausted, frustrated, angry, left behind and so many like kinds of emotions.
And sometimes our lives go as planned; “chasing & catching all that paper”, conquering milestones back to back, attaining promotions and the rest of those types of achievements we love.
It keeps going on and on, I mean life just keeps going in circles or straight lines or whatever shapes it may take for each individual.
But in this beautifully clustered life that we find ourselves, do we take actual time to rest?
Yes! Do you take time out to recoil from all the noise, cluster ? To just Rest.
There is a a lot of physical health benefits from taking breaks from our busy schedules and lives to just rest. But asides the physical, mental benefits we can get from resting.
It is amazing to know that God blessed a day, the sabbath day as the day of rest. The key word here is blessed! I know that whatsoever/whoever God blesses is golden and perhaps we christians may just be under utilizing this rest that God has specially designed for us. Perhaps we are not tapping enough into the blessings God has ascribed to rest that He has created for us.
“There is no peace,” says God, “for the wicked.” – Isaiah 48:22
Unrest was made only for wicked people, people on their way to perdition. But as for we the children of God, rest was made for us.
What is Rest? It is making out time, time to withdraw from people, withdraw from everything good your hands finds doing and just be. Be alone, with God. You could be quiet there, you could speak to Him there, it is a moment to just be there.
Why did God make rest for us? ( this list is inexhaustive of the reasons, the bible has it all)
- To prevent us from burning out- Our Lord Jesus Christ was anointed and went about doing good everywhere that He went-Acts 10:38. But still Jesus made out time to retreat to be by Himself, made out time to rest from all the great He was doing. Although He was anointed, He could have said He could keep going non-stop but that was not the case. He came to show us the way, truth and life through His exemplary living. For example in Luke 5:16 , we see that Jesus goes to be by Himself after He had just healed a leper. He went to be alone and there also He prayed. I believe this is a factor in Jesus’ tenacity and the reason we did not read that He became faint or weary or frustrated during His ministry on earth.
Asides being annointed, Jesus also made sure He retreated to be by Himself to rest and also speak to His father. There are so many bible verses that tell us about these solitude times of Jesus.
- To help us replenish our lost exerted energy/virtues-As we go about doing our God-given tasks, I believe we are exerting virtues. We are able to do the things we do because we have invested and poured into ourselves hours of studying, or praying & fasting and so on, Whichever ways, some level of investment had been done by us into our lives and that is how we are able to carry on.
Remember the story of the woman with the issue of blood who touched the hem of Jesus’s garment? Jesus mentioned that He felt that virtue had left His body although He did not know to whom.Luke 8:40-46. This means that everytime Jesus did good or healed the sick, virtue flowed out of His body and life.
Only if we were sensitive enough, we probably would know the virtues we ooze as we go about fulfilling purpose. But God knows all these, hence why He created rest, for us to use it and be blessed as we rest.
- To help us stay refreshed- Following the story of our role model, Jesus, we see that every time He went away from His place of rest, He was back doing the business of His father. Moreover the scripture tells us that God will refresh those who are weary and will satisfy with food everyone who is weak from hunger. So then people will say, I went to sleep and woke up refreshed- jeremiah 31:25-26
See! Sleep is a form of rest.God is calling for His people to rest, it is in this place of rest that we would emerge refreshed.
- To help us stay radiating the glory of the Lord- There is just something about resting, being with God alone. God breathes on you and His glory just rests upon such an individual. Jesus went alone to a mountain, he took along His really close friends. I can only imagine the things they did there, prayed, spent time sharing the word of God, rested. The bible says that awhile after Peter, James and John looked at Jesus and saw that His face was shining like the sun and His clothes were dazzling white. Matthew 17:1-2
We probably may not physically see how shiny and dazzling we look except the Lord opens our eyes to see. But the scripture has shown us a sample of what can spring up from the place of rest.
- To strengthen and solidify our relationship with Him- In this place of rest when we speak to God and stay to listen to what He has to say, we grow in our walk with God and our relationship with Him solidifies.
Now the day or time of rest may be a subject of contention for christians; deciding which day is sabbath or not. I personally take Sunday off any form of work after church service. I tried to bring in work on this day but the Holy Spirit dealt with me.
So I strongly believe you can pick out this day with your father in Heaven, The scripture tells us that the son of man is Lord over sabbath- Matthew 12:8. Meaning Jesus is Lord over the sabbath day, so you can have a conversation with Him on your sabbath day. The day you map out to just rest from all your creativity and work and ask Him to bless that day for you.
Whatever you decide, please take out time to rest, rest in the presence of the living God. May He keep helping us to live the kind of lives that glorifies Him in Jesus name.