Work and Rest
(The following is the text of the video, “Work and Rest,” found HERE.)
Music takes more than just playing notes. Good music also includes rests--those breaks or silences between notes.
If you are a guitarist and you see this sign in your musical score, know you are to pause for one-sixteenth of a beat. Or if you are on the French horn, this sign tells you to stop for the length of a quarter note.
To any musician, a musical note says “go.” But a rest signs says “stop.” Pause here and rest for a bit. Those who compose music write into their scores not only notes for sounds but also rests for silences. The effective combination of notes and rests can produce breathtaking music.
God, the Grand Composer of everything, also built the rest stop right into his Creation. “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing” [the Creation music he had been playing]; “so on the seventh day he rested from all his work” [he ceased his work of Creation]. Of course, he continues to work in other ways.
So in composing Creation, God wrote it with a seven-beat measure: work, work, work, work, work, work--rest. This means Creation carries within its own history this work-rest rhythm.
God’s own work-rest rhythm set the pace for those made in his image. He spelled that out in the fourth of 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. On it you shall not do any work.” So the musical score for our work includes that rest sign.
But why? Why did God include the rests in our work assignment? Actually, the Bible gives two different reasons to explain why God gave us this work-rest rhythm.
Exodus gives us the first reason: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”So the first reason for the work-rest rhythm is rooted in Creation and God’s own work-rest pattern. We work because God did--and we rest because he did. Made in his image, we reflect him by working . . . and then by resting.
We find the second reason in Deuteronomy: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” The second meaning behind the work-rest rhythm, then, is liberation--tracing back to when God freed the Israelites from their slave-labor in Egypt.
Even if others don’t coerce us into slave labor, it’s all too easy to enslave ourselves to our work. However, a Stanford University Study demonstrated that working 70 hours per week produced no more value than working 55 hours per week. Overworking makes our labor unproductive.
Maybe that helps to explain why the two versions of the work-rest commands contain so many more words about rest than about work. In the Exodus command of 109 words, only 10 are on work, while 99 are on rest. In the Deuteronomy version, with 127 words, 10 are on work, leaving 117 on rest.
Andre Sarradon has said: “If it is difficult to make someone work who does not want to, it is even more difficult to hinder someone from working who wants to, who is obsessed by his activity.” God’s work-rest rhythm, then, can actually serve as a guardrail against workaholism.
Including a regular rest-day within your week requires a step of faith. Overwork promises, but does not deliver, a number of desirable benefits. So instead of wearing yourself out to reach those goals Instead, draw them from Jesus himself. Look to him for your satisfaction . . . for your security. . . and for your supply.
Rest can certainly include a nap, but means far more. The Hebrew word for rest means “to cease.” So even vigorous activity can serve as way to cease from working if it takes your mind and body out of weekly work routines.
Once you have decided on a rest day, shut the door against work that will try to creep back into it. Work for one person may actually be rest for another. For example, fishing might be just right as rest for you. But if your work is commercial fishing, maybe not.
If your work requires you to sit passively while using computers all day, rest for you probably won’t involve keyboards and monitors. Golfing might make a better choice--but not if you work as a golf pro. Or hiking could provide just what you need for a distinct break from your work, so long as you don’t work as a tour group leader on mountain trails.
Why does Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony delight us? Partly because of his brilliant use of rests--found not just in the opening notes but throughout.
How can you incorporate God’s work-rest rhythm into your own life?
From Chapter Five, “Let’s Pause”:
“Because we are made in the image of the God who rested, that work-work-work-work-work-work—rest rhythm is part of our makeup.”
