Was God out of gas after He created the world in six days? I doubt it but He called for rest. Why did God call for rest in Gen 2:1-3? “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done. That sounds like He DID work on the seventh day and then ceased to work. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation”. Later in verse 15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it”. Does everybody work? God created male and female on the sixth day, in His own image, and blessed them. In my Maxwell Leadership Bible (not his translation but with notes relating to leadership) Adam is called the first leader to drop the ball and Eve, a leader who learned from failure, but today I’m writing about rest. God finished His work and rested. We are made in God’s image and also need rest but because we are neither omnipresent, omnipotent, nor eternal in our bodies, rest is a regular requirement. With 24 hours in a busy day it has always felt a waste to spend a third of those hours in recovery from the previous 16, but there you have it – God’s design and not my design. It does not say God needed rest but says that He did rest. Is this another example of what we should practice? Another kind of tired can come from the simple exhaustion of running on empty. You are putting out but not receiving. You are drained. Picture driving your car. If you don’t take care of it the car will not take care of you. That means swiping your credit card at the CostCo pump. One of the main definitions in Hebrew of the word ‘shabat’ (rest) is stop or ceased. God stopped creating on the seventh day. On a train on Friday I saw a man with a tattoo across his collarbone which read ’empty’, in a script font. There may have been other words but that is what jumped out at me. His message made me worry for him. It did not matter that his appearance was concerning but that message. When I return from foreign countries, where I cannot clearly speak my thoughts, I will talk with strangers (if they don’t mind) and ask them why they chose a particular message to wear on their bodies or t-shirts. Back to filling your tank – we are to work wisely and not beyond exhaustion. How do we know this is the right work? There are two hard things about not being sure you are where you can best thrive…the days and the nights. The days you work, work, work, to better things and at night you worry about the lack of peace. We need to flush our version of God as a task-master. That is a better description of the Islam Allah. God delights in us and has our names written on the palm of His hand. Who has such a loving Abba Father? Here are some affirming scriptures to enjoy; Isa 43:1, Ex 14:14, Ps 139:17, Jer 29:11, Ps 62:6-8, and Matt 28:20. If you are weary and running on empty, change it up. I’m serious. Find people who don’t take from you, even in the name of ministry. Find the people who, when you are out of gas, tired, sick, or weary don’t say, “rest and get better”, but instead say, “what do you need and how can I help you today”? Those are your people, made in the image of God, who see you and care that you are rested.
