integrity for sale (3 of 4)
Exodus 31:15 ‘For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death.’
Now, before I get going, I don’t think that violating the Sabbath is worthy of death…just to be clear.
But, I do believe that God instituted a principle here. He said, work for 6, rest for 1. I believe that He instituted this principle because He created humankind and He knows how we best work.
Not only that, but I heard a message once that said that taking one day a week off builds in constant faith reminders into your life. It is, every week, saying to God, “I will trust you for 7 days of work in 6 days.”
For some people, taking a day off is a constant faith struggle. Do I trust God enough to take a day off, or do I think that the only way things are going to get done is by my working? Am I able to take my hands off of some things, or do I really think that the success of whatever I’m working on has ANYTHING to do with me?
This is a huge struggle for me. I love my job and really enjoy working, so it’s natural for me to just work every day. It was the longest time that I went without taking a day off because I was just into it.
But, whenever I don’t take a day off, I ultimately begin to believe that the success of things has to do with MY involvement, not GOD’S. It’s kind of like pride slips in.
So, is my integrity worth an extra day of work, or will I trust God for the work that I could get done in that day?
I need to ask that question a lot.
What do you think about the Sabbath?
February 17, 2008 at 1:03 am
What kind of things do u do to bring u back to zero/ refresh u? Has this been an evolving process? How do u do this as a husband and now dad?
Has there been a time where the activities that were deemed restful ever turn into work, becoming more of a hinderance than help?
February 18, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I’m about to start a series of blogs about this…I’ve had a lot of people ask me about it.
I tried to answer these questions in the blogs…if I didn’t, let me know!
February 18, 2008 at 10:20 pm
[...] A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how I believed in the principle of taking a Sabbath (read it here), which is taking one day off of work a week. A total day off. No checking e-mail, no answering [...]