Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Trust”
Our Bible verse for today: “You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work.” Exodus 20:9-10 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Give yourself a break.”
As you read this it is Monday morning and many of you are getting ready to go to work. Some of you love your job and are eager to get there. Some of you hate your job and are gritting your teeth at the thought of another day of your life being spent doing it. And some of you are being completely utilitarian about it in that you are going simply because you have to. “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.” The implication being that if you didn’t owe, you wouldn’t go.
But Biblically work is a good thing. We’re supposed to work hard so we can earn a living and thereby provide for ourselves and for those who depend on us. The problem for many of us is not that we don’t work enough, but that we work too much. Some of us are workaholics whose lives are defined by our careers. Others have allowed themselves to become so deeply in debt that they have to earn a lot of money just to keep their head above water. Therefore they work as many hours as they can in order to earn as much as they can. Either way, the bottom line is that work consumes too much of our lives.
I tend to be the workaholic type. I love what I do and I’m committed to it with a passion that borders on compulsion. And therefore I overwork. I don’t give myself enough of a break. I’m betting that many of you are like that too.
In the Fourth Commandment God built a weekly break into the normal rhythm of life. The Sabbath is designed for rest and worship – and it’s because we need it. But actually this commandment is intended to convey more than just a black and white legalistic rule about not working one day a week. There’s a larger lesson here – especially for workaholics like me. Often we’re tempted to think that the world will stop turning if we don’t keep working. Or the lives of other people will fall apart if we don’t vigilantly stay involved and try to help them solve their problems.
Well the reality is that life will carry on just fine if you stop for a while to give yourself a break. And other people will discover that they can solve their own problems and therefore it’s not necessary for you to constantly hover and intervene. It really boils down to a matter of trusting God.
The fact is that He’s God and you’re not. He’s going to be up all night watching over things anyway and therefore you don’t have to be. And should you take an extra day off, or even dare to go on a vacation, I’m betting God can cover that for you too.
Tomorrow we will continue this discussion about giving ourselves a break. We will consider the importance of leisure time – but not leisure as it is commonly understood. I’m talking about real leisure that genuinely makes a helpful difference.
There are some pretty significant benefits for us when we trust God to cover us while we take the breaks we need. Tomorrow we’ll explore this truth a little deeper.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 