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Resting

             By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Genesis 2:2-3)

 

            Yesterday, I listened to John Ortberg talk about these verses, and today, I think I understand them better. He described God’s resting not as God taking a nap, or spending time recovering from working, or even taking a break from working. With the seventh day, God stopped the work of creation. He had finished his work. It’s dangerous to try to take our illustrations too far, but it’s as if He sat back on His throne and said – “Ta Da. It’s Done.” It’s not that God declared it done and walked away. But He rested – He stopped doing what He had been doing and began something else.

            We can probably all think of times when we’ve done this, but until this morning, I didn’t think of it this way. This morning, as I brought my third load of compost over from the park and finished filling the last bed that I’m going to fill for now, I got the feeling of “OK. Take a deep breath. It’s done.” It’s not that the garden is done, and I don’t have anything else to do in it for the rest of the summer. It’s that the phase involving making, placing, leveling, and filling the frames is done. The rush to get to the park to bring home enough compost to fill them, before everyone else took it all, is over.

            Of course, God wasn’t competing with anyone, but even without that, the sense of relief, release, and rest was positively delicious. I went back for a fourth load with which to top off some of the older beds, but most of it got wheeled into the garage. I’ll get to it soon, but I celebrate being done today.

            I don’t know how to apply this in a weekly sense, but I’d like to figure it out. It’s not just working Monday through Saturday then taking Sunday off because we’re not allowed to work. It has to do with figuring out in advance all that needs to be done in order to be done on Saturday. It involves figuring out ways to make a week complete or to complete our work in those six days. That means it involves our being more aware of it and more involved in it than just putting in our hours and going home to vegetate in front of the TV before going to bed, getting up, and repeating the process. It requires that we connect more with our own lives, with our work, and ultimately with our God.

 

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