Bits of Heaven. Russell J. Levenson Jr.

He Did, You Should

      Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

      —Genesis 2:1–3

       When do you rest?

      Henry David Thoreau penned these stark words about work without rest, “The laboring man hasn’t leisure for true integrity daily. No time for anything but to be a machine.” Wow . . . a machine. Tough words, but true to the bone.

When God finished the work of creation, we are told “he rested.” We live in a world that prizes hard work—no quarrel with that, but we also live in a world where authentic rest is sometimes seen as laziness. There is, of course, such a thing as laziness and the Bible was not too keen on that vice.³ But rest from hard labor is something God did; and it was so important that we followed that lead. Rest was woven into the Ten Commandments, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work . . .” (Exodus 20:9–10).

      Without physical rest, the body literally begins to break down; health gives way to exhaustion and illness. But without spiritual rest, time set aside for God, our soul begins to give way to spiritual sickness. Rest is an absolute necessity in one’s spiritual health. God rested, and if the Creator of the universe did it, so should we.

The question for your consideration today is, “When do you rest?”⁴ I know some people who go on vacation and then, well, do not really rest. They carry along all the electronic gadgets that keep them distracted from everything and everyone around them. I also know people who habitually use their off-day simply to catch up on household chores. No doubt some of these are necessary realities in the workaday world, but they should not be at the expense of resting.

A life without rest tends to conceal what is really going on—a discomfort with silence and solitude, reinforcing an illusion that we are the masters of our own souls. On the other hand, voluntary rest can restore our confidence in God by reconnecting us to him. Richard Foster reminds us, “If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control.”⁵ That is not a bad thing, is it?

      Are you following God’s lead? Are you obeying God’s command?

       A Bit of Heaven

      Not all of us are blessed to able to rest a full day in seven; and some of us work much more than a typical eight-hour day, but that does not negate God’s model, nor his command. When do you rest?

       A Prayer

      My spirit longs for Thee

      Within my troubled breast,

      Though I unworthy be

      Of so divine a guest.

      Of so divine a guest

      Unworthy though I be,

      Yet has my heart no rest

      Unless it come from Thee.

       Amen.

      —John Byrom, d. 1763

3 See, for instance, Proverbs 10:4, 12:27; Ecclesiastes 10:18; Titus 1:12; Hebrews 6:12.

4 Not “How do you rest?” We will get to that too!

5 Foster, Celebration of Discipline, 101.

      Meditation 5

Watch Your Step

      The Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.”

      —Genesis 2:16–17

       Are you using your freedom wisely?

      I spent most of the summer prior to my freshman year in college studying at a Sea Lab along the Alabama Gulf Coast. While much of our work was in the classroom and lab, there was also a great deal of work in the field; and the field for budding marine biologists is the sea. On a few occasions, we used our small vessel for less noble causes than collecting specimens, and instead caught our dinner by dropping a large drag net.

      Our maritime grocery cart would be hoisted out of the water, bulging with some of the finest shrimp the Gulf had to offer. A pull of binding and the entire contents would spill out all over the deck. Students were then free to choose their own, but sifted in the rich harvest were some dangerous foes—crabs with sharp pincers, stingrays whipping barbed tails to and fro, the poisonous lionfish and stinging man-of-war. A careless move, choosing poorly, even a careless step could mean a nasty wound, or worse, a trip to the hospital. Everything that fell on the deck was there for the taking, but not everything was good for the takers.

      However you wish to interpret what was going on between God and the first humans in the Garden of Eden, it is clear that part of God’s plan was to give humans freedom to choose—freedom to choose right and freedom to choose wrong. It is also clear that there were far more opportunities to choose right than there were to choose wrong. Our divinely created forebears could eat of all the trees they wanted, but they were warned to stay away from just one.

      For the most part, you and I are free to choose—our friends, our spouses, our habits; what we eat, drink, and how we use our free time. Virtually all of these “freedom of choice” opportunities include both right and wrong offerings. We never regret making the right choice; we almost always regret making the wrong one. St. Frances de Sales wrote, “We have freedom to do good or evil; yet to make choice of evil, is not to use, but to abuse our freedom.”

      God’s gift of freedom tells us a lot about God’s parental policy. God is a loving God, not a controlling God. As loving parents counsel, coach, and guide, but do not “control” their child, God sets before us a myriad of opportunities, tells us where to go, but leaves the freedom to choose up to us. As the church father Origen suggested, “The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.” Hmmm. . . watch your step.

       A Bit of Heaven

      Are you using your gift of freedom wisely? In the myriad of choices before you, right now, have you identified the choice you should not make? How will you live into that decision?

       A Prayer

      Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart,

      which no unworthy affection may drag

      downwards;