The rest you're not wise enough to take - Tuesday Theology: From Stressed to Blessed

Ask any Dane whether they feel completely on top of the week’s tasks.

Whether everything's done, the inbox is empty, the list is cleared. Very few can say yes.

We live in a world that always wants it faster, and preferably yesterday. And speed creates stress.

It's more exhausting to run through a city than to walk calmly through it, even when the distance is the same.

This is the second Tuesday in the series From Stressed to Blessed. Last time we saw that the Lord is the shepherd who provides for us.

Today comes the next line. It's small, but it holds everything.

"He leads me to green meadows and brings me to still waters." (Psalm 23:2)

In the English rendering there's something our translation tucks away neatly: the shepherd makes the sheep lie down.

Sheep aren't wise enough to rest when they're tired. They keep going until the shepherd forces them down into the grass.

If we're honest, we're not much better.

God made your body so that if you don't take time off, the body takes it for you. At a moment you didn't choose.

You might know the feeling. You push and push, and then you get sick right when you finally had a week with nothing on the list.

God could have made us without any need for sleep. He didn't.

You're going to sleep about a third of your life. Why would a God who gives you only eighty or ninety years let a third of it go to waste in sleep?

Because it isn't waste. Because he wants to teach you that rest belongs to life.

He set it so high that he wrote it into the Ten Commandments, side by side with you shall not kill and you shall not lie:

"Six days a week you shall work, all year round, even in planting time and harvest time. On the seventh day you shall rest from your work." (Exodus 34:21)

Notice those four words: even in planting time and harvest time. Even when it's busiest of all.

There is no season where the commandment takes a break. Are you an accountant, and is it March? You still take a day off. Are you self-employed in the middle of high season? It still holds.

A sabbath does three things. It rests the body. It turns your focus toward God. And it recharges the emotions.

That last part is what a day off doing something you love does to us. A hobby. A walk. Something that gives you your energy back.

It doesn't have to be Sunday. Pick your own day.

But don't call it "my day off." Because then you'll cheat on it. You'll see everything sitting there waiting and think: I can just squeeze that in.

Call it your sabbath. Then you'll use it for what God gave it for.

And if you get a guilty conscience when you rest, remember that Jesus didn't.

Again and again he withdrew after a busy stretch and said to his friends: come, let's get away for a while. He didn't feel guilty about it.

He knew that if you don't get away, you break.

Which day is your sabbath? And when did you last take a full day off, without cheating?

Are you good or bad at resting? Be honest in the comments.

The best in you requires rest. You're not wasting time when you rest. You're obeying.