Re-Creation

Wow. The last few days have been exhausting. It seems like every moment has been packed with one thing after another. And then we had a few unexpected surprises along the way, namely me getting sick and our basement flooding, to make things even more hectic. And now that it’s Thursday my whole being is yearning for rest.

Because Sunday is a work day for me, my normal day “off” is Friday. I put that in quotes because it is supposed to be my day off but more often than not I find myself finishing up a sermon, making calls, working on a disciple class, or any other number of various tasks. More often than not I find that my time off is used to catch up on the multitude of things still on my to-do list. It’s easy to justify using this time to work. After all, it’s all worthy stuff that needs to get done. It’s all a way of helping other people. All of it needs to happen at some point and since my husband is at work I tell myself I might as well get this done while he is busy instead of working on it when I could otherwise be spending time with him.

I think this is a common scenario in our day and age. Many people work way more than 40 hours a week. In a society where our value is determined by our productivity level, it is easy to guilt ourselves into working on weeks. We feel lazy if we actually take a day to rest and relax.

Yet one of the first things that God commands us to do is rest. I think it is striking that every living thing that I can think of needs some form of rest. Even plants lay dormant for a period of time. All of life needs rest to be renewed, to be re-created. God knew that we would need a day of rest and it would seem that God has made us partners in the creation process. God invites us to a time of rest and recreation so that we can be re-created, so we can be renewed and regenerated.

So tomorrow I will be having a day of much needed rest, a day without sermons or phone calls, a day without prep work for classes or any other ministry. What needs to happen so that you can also have a day or rest? What are the barriers to you experiencing a day of rest each week? And how can you work towards removing those barriers?