The One We Skip?

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Exodus 20:8-11 (NLT)"Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy."

What This Says to Me

I know that we don't break the other nine commandments casually. At least we certainly don't intend to break them at all. We don't wake up wondering if today's the day we'll give murder or idolatry a try...

But a Sabbath? Eh... maybe? Or do we treat it like a suggestion, not a command carved into stone right alongside "you shall not steal"? God ties this one to the creation of our world itself. When you stop to consider that, that is not a small thing. And yet there are times when I have built a life where rest feels like the thing I schedule around everything else... if there's time left over. Because there is so much to do, so much for our kids to do... so maybe. Some day.

Maybe He is modeling something for His creation that we desperately need: that He designed us to need rest, that when we fail to rest, things get out of order. We fail to live as God intended, just like when we steal, covet, or murder. It would be quite silly of us to think of the Ten Commandments as a graduated list, as if certain ones matter less than others... and yet, do we?

The command isn't "rest if you're tired." It's "rest because I said so, and because I did it first." He rested, so we should too. Period.

What Is This Saying to You?

• What would it say about our view of God if we can obey Him in every other command but resist this one?

• If rest requires trusting that the world holds together without your constant effort, what does your resistance to Sabbath reveal about who you actually believe is holding things together?

What Are We Going to Do About It?

Pick one day this week and actually stop. Not "catch up on chores" stop, but the kind of stop that trusts God with what's left undone.