FROM THE PASTOR’S HEART
OP-ED BY DR. ROBERT KENNEDY
It was a bright Sunday afternoon, and my wife and I had to rush to the nearest Home Depot. That was not out of character for us, for Sunday is a work day. But we were forced to notice as we went into the Home Depot parking lot that several people entering the store were dressed in their “Sunday Best.”
They were pouring into the Mall from a nearby church that had just concluded its services. I whispered to my wife, “These people do not rest. They do not appreciate the blessings of the rest that God has given to them. They are working on a day they call a day of rest.”
If you are wondering where I am going with this reflection, let me state that I find it a point of interest that since human beings have rejected the day of rest that God gave at the creation (Genesis 2:1-3) and have made up their own day of rest they treat the rest in a most irreverent, and secular way. That is, they go to church for a few moments and worship but then return to the mundane, quotidian, routine, everyday life as if their day of rest were any other day.
If you are wondering why there is so much stress and sickness in today’s world, you have the answer if you say that, among other things, “People will not rest.” One article I read some time ago stated that about 33 percent of people in America report feeling extremely stressed. Up to 73 percent of individuals report stress is impacting their mental health. The article went on to state that so many Americans are dying of stress because they are caught in the grind of work, family responsibilities, and other busy activities. Many individuals only allow themselves to rest on holidays or if they can afford a vacation. But the majority do not rest.
If left untreated, stress can cause chest pain, headaches, digestive issues, anxiety, depression, sleep loss, brain dysfunction, memory loss, lack of proper concentration, weakened immunity, metabolic challenges, changes in sexual desire, and the inability to focus.
On the other hand, it has been discovered that rest promotes reduced stress and anxiety, improved emotional tone, decreased blood pressure, reduction in chronic pain, improved immune health, stronger cardiovascular system, better mental health, increased concentration and memory, a better metabolism, and better spiritual and relational connection.
While it might be difficult to define rest for everyone, rest is any behavior aimed at increasing physical or mental well-being. It can be active, such as going for a walk outside, or passive, such as taking 10 minutes to sit down and breathe deeply. Such daily behaviors can help us recover and recharge from physical and mental efforts. That’s why better rest is linked to better physical and mental health. For this reason, it is said; however, if you decide to rest, take some rest.
Let me lead you back to the point that I wanted to make from the start, namely that apart from the little breaks that we might select to rest, God has given humanity a pattern for rest that has been established from creation.
Firstly, God has given the days to work and the night to sleep. Study after study has shown that working the night shift negatively impacts people’s mental health. Working against a person’s natural sleep cycle causes many sleep disorders, fatigue, depression, decreases cognitive abilities and reflexes, and makes people more vulnerable to disease. Do I need to say more than that? I have never worked nights but have worked late nights, traveled cross country on the “red-eye” flights, and know what happened to my brain in the days following. I can leave it at that and get on to the second fact.
Secondly, God has given humanity a Sabbath rest. I am speaking about the creation Sabbath, just as it says in the Bible (Genesis 2:1-3). “Six days you shall work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.” (Exodus 20:9-11; cf. Mark 2:27, 28). Do I need to say more on this? Let me remind you of one of the promised blessings for those who keep the Bible Sabbath:
If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord, honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob, your father.
The mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 58:13, 14 NKJV)
The curse of humanity is that it has not accepted God’s formulas for resting. Instead, humanity has created its own Sabbaths – Sundays or Fridays or whatever suits the moment, and then they keep them in the ways they formulate. The example that I gave at the beginning of this reflection tells that people go to church, get a little hype, and then after an hour or so, return to the routine of every day or other activity that has nothing to do with the kind of rest that God gave at the start of the creation for the total health and wellbeing of humanity.
Think about it, how much we curse ourselves when we do not do what God asked us to do. The book of Hebrews tells how the Ancient Israelites were cursed in the wilderness because they rejected God’s rest (Hebrews 4:1-11). What happened then is what is happening today. In our contemporary world, we are losing God’s blessings of rest because we have created our own formulas of rest and despised the rest of God.
We really need to ask God to help us to accept his formula of Sabbath rest. That is, if we want to eliminate the curses, we have put on ourselves by adopting our own formulas of rest. To enjoy the blessings that God has put in his formula of rest, let us return to His creation plan and rest on the Sabbath. I mean true rest, worship, serve those about us, and fellowship.
