A Day of Rest!!

A Day of Rest

June 5, NY

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yok is easy and my burden is light.”

            We have plans! And then we have plans! Sometimes God has other plans! Norm and I had made plans to ride to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome today, Sunday. It is a museum with WWI and WWII airplanes and on the weekend they have air shows. Today was not going to be the day to go there. We woke up to rain and it hasn’t quit but just a little while since we got up at 7:00.

            Norm said, “Let’s just stay here today and have a day of rest. We can read, play the guitar and take a nap.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. What does a day of rest mean to you? Usually it means to me just sit around and do nothing but what you want to do after a busy week. We have just ridden approximately 1000+ miles in three days. My booty does need a rest and so do my legs. It will be fun. I will have time to catch up on my blog and do some more reading.

Rest was important in the Bible too. In the Bible dictionary, rest means cessation from motion. In these busy times, most of us don’t take a day or even hours to rest from the busyness.

In the OT, God rested from the act of creating on the seventh day. “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work creation he had done.”  Gen. 2:2

The people of God were also given the blessing of rest a whole day out of each week in which to rejoice in and contemplate God’s works and words. Ex. 16:23. It was a day everyone had to rest from his labors, no matter his status.

In the NT, we see the theology of rest in Jesus’ words “come to me and I will give you rest” Mt. 11:28-30. The rest he promises is certainly for the world to come, but it is also for the world. It is the sense of security and peace that flows from a right relation with God, the Father, through obedience to His Son, the Messiah and membership in his kingdom.

Do you rest? Is there a time when you slow down and contemplate on what God has done is doing in your life? A time when you praise Him for the way He watches over you and every aspect of your life? I praise