it's hard work to rest

Lately I've been thinking about rest, and how hard it is to come by sometimes in our culture and world. I felt a little better when I read a story about the Israelites, just after God had brought them out of Egypt:


Then the Lord said to Moses, "Look, I'm going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they will gather food, and when they prepare it, there will be twice as much as usual."...On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much as usual--four quarts for each person instead of two. Then all the leaders of the community came and asked Moses for an explanation. He told them ,"This is what the Lord commanded: Tomorrow will be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath day set apart for the Lord. So bake or boil as much as you want today, and set aside what is left for tomorrow....You may gather the food for six days, but the seventh day is the Sabbath. There will be no food on the ground that day." Some of the people went out anyway on the seventh day, but they found no food. The Lord asked Moses, "How long will these people refuse to obey my commands and instructions? They must realize that the Sabbath is the Lord's gift to you. That is why He gives you a two-day supply on the sixth day, so there will be enough for two days." --Portions of Exodus 16, NTL


Imagine this...God asks the Israelites to set aside one day just for rest, and for Him. But not only does He ask this, He gives them everything they will need to do this! He gives them twice as much food the day before so they don't even have to gather food, but still they are so used to working and being busy (and perhaps providing for themselves?) that they go out to gather food on the seventh day!


Why is it so hard to rest? Our culture screams at us to stay busy, to keep moving, to be efficient, and to have something to show for our efforts. I have myself been a part of the I'm-busier-than-you arguments that somehow we feel shows our value to others. But God says, "REST! Your value doesn't lie in your busyness or your fruitfulness, it lies in ME."


It's amazing that God even stopped the manna from falling on the seventh day. Probably He knew that even though He had commanded the people not to gather that day, they would still do it just because there was something to keep them busy! So He eliminated the problem by basically giving them nothing to do.


If only God would do that for us! He tells us to rest, to pause, to meditate, to be...but nothing around us seems to stop to help us do that. The manna is still falling, if you will, and we look at it, and then at God, and think, "Well, it won't take LONG to gather it...why not just do a little...God would be pleased, I think, with my work ethic!" And somehow the seventh day comes and goes, and rest is still out there somewhere, waiting.

If we need an example of one who paused and rested in the true sense of the Sabbath, in spite of craziness going all around, we need only to look to Jesus. But even He had to work hard at being alone and with the Father, because if He ministered (worked for God) whenever there was a chance to, He would have never stopped! Many times the Gospel writers tell us that crowds and crowds were waiting to be prayed for or blessed, so I doubt Jesus was ever lacking someone to help. Yet He rested.

So once again, I identify with the Israelites...but I know that if I obey Him and learn to value rest and what it means for my life, I will be a happier, more fruitful disciple than I ever could thought possible.

Leila