Rest according to Genesis - Rest #2

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

We find in Gen 2:2-3 (above) the first mention of “rest” in the Biblical record. Clearly God didn’t need to rest, but what does the fact that God rested, say about our God and His creation (us)?

Commentator Walter Brueggemann offers 2 answers to the above question(s):
1) The 7th day (or Sabbath as it is also called) says something about God… in contrast to the “gods” of nations surrounding Israel, “this God is not anxious about his creation but is at ease with the well-being of his rule.”
2) The Sabbath says something about our world… “the world is safely in God’s hands. The world will not disintegrate if we stop our efforts. The world relies on God’s promises and not on our efforts.

Think about the implications in your own life. From the beginning of creation a pattern of regular rest has been in place. Rest is an important and good thing. Importantly, God is not anxious about His creation. He’s not anxious about your life – even the most intimate details. His rule is supreme, and all things are under His loving control. The 7th day reminds us of this delightful truth. Obviously then it is not our efforts that keep the world spinning. We need to hear that again and again. We need not let this be an excuse for laziness, and that may be a struggle for some. But for many in our quick-paced, high-pressure, anxiousness-riddled culture we have different struggles. We go go go all of the time. We’ve got E-mails to answer, kids to get to bed, a service project to get done, a T.V. show to watch, and it goes on and on. To what end to we sprint through life? Many of us pridefully work to arrange our own ‘kingdoms’ just how we want them, when God is sovereignly king over all. Many of us need to stop trying to run our own world, and slow down a bit. Many of us need to take a nap, go for a walk with our kids (when the weather warms up), slowly share quiet cup of coffee with a struggling church member, spend extended time in prayer, read a good Christian book, visit an ailing shut-in, or just get to bed earlier. The work will get done. The E-mails will get answered. The T.V show can wait. Taking time to rest confesses that our God is Lord of all. Go on. Do it. Declare that God is Lord of your life. Rest.