Finding the Rest of Your Life
By Sue Maakestad
America: Land of extremes, home of the body snatchers. In the one nation on earth that affords the most freedom, we’ve become willing slaves, chasing so hard after leisure that we’ve arrived at burnout.
Fifty years ago America was riding high on the crest of so many inventions and labor-saving devices we could scarcely keep up. Testimony before a Senate subcommittee in 1967 predicted that by 1985 people would be working 22 hours a week and retirement age would be 38. By 1990 our greatest concern would be what to do with all the time on our hands. Maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t had the time to be concerned yet.
Stores with closeable doors are an oddity now, and your burger and fries are at the drive-thru at three in the morning. Banks without Saturday hours make the news, and when all else fails you can shop and work online. In short, the more we work at having time off… the more we work. And for years we’ve worried about being replaced by machines. Hey: maybe that’s who you looked at in the mirror this morning. We just never realized the invasion of the body snatchers would be a bloodless revolution.
But God never meant for our human-machine interface to be internal. To give us a clue He set the example by resting from his labors (one of which was not Adam the cyborg). It’s in our endless pursuit of getting on top of it all that we run into trouble, because God never meant for us to be on top of it all. That’s His spot. One of the most important lessons God taught man by giving him the Sabbath is that the world would keep spinning without him.
Rest is an important thing, and a miraculous one. Have you ever considered the wonder of the fact that all it takes to recharge the human body is to knock it out for a few hours? You don’t even have to plug it in. Try that with your BlackBerry. But if we neglect our rest we quickly break down. We zone out. We get sick. We’re not machines after all. Somebody smart already knew that.
After the French Revolution, the government tried to establish a ten-day work week. It didn’t last. In 1929 Russia experimented with staggered days off during an uninterrupted work week. That lasted till 1940 when public outcry overcame the law. According to Time Magazine, even Communist China keeps Sunday as a day of rest. Sabbath is a great gift that God wrapped up and sent around the world with the Jews. Sabbath is wonderful because it saves us from ourselves.
In Jeremiah 17:5-8 God says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his strength, for he shall be like a shrub in the desert…in parched places of the wilderness… Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters that spreads out its roots by the river...” Can you see the correlation between source and product here? You can only produce according to your supply. Lean on you and be a shrub. Lean on God and be a spreading green tree. That is to say, quit trying so hard. Admit that you’re human. Admit that God is God. Admit you’re nothing without Him. Do you mean that? Do you trust Him? Then release the death grip on your life and let go. He can handle it.
Let God save you from yourself. That’s why He sent Jesus to be your Sabbath rest. He patiently explains to the Jews in Hebrews 4 that if Joshua had already given them rest (in the Promised Land) He wouldn’t keep promising them another Day of rest. This is why I gave you the Sabbath, He tells them: so you could learn to rest from you. So you could learn to rest in the work that Jesus already did for you because you can never do enough without Him. “He who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His,” He tells us in Hebrews 4:10. Do you want real leisure time? Be still and know He is God. Your God, personally. Release your burdens to Him. Make Jesus your rest and get charged up for real action.
“Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31).