This morning I was watching a daily news show when a certain story stopped my bagel midair (and that is tough to do). A national newspaper’s “smart living” editor was informing the audience on “how to do nothing” when they get a day off. Do we really need to be taught this? Apparently we do. It seems that we are either too busy or think that we should always be busy. If you think about it, we also need phones to tell us when to stand up, walk, take deep breaths, and drink fluids.
I want to blame technology for our current situation as it is a very handy scapegoat. Multiple televisions adorn almost every wall in most eating establishments, music emanates from every manmade orifice, phones are attached to every person, and information seems to rain from ether space onto our human parade at an alarming rate.
I remember that there came a point in my teaching career where I went from helping students find information to showing them how to weed through the mass of disinformation.
(Through rose colored glasses, I am convinced that my own youth was much more relaxed though I do remember my parents telling me that I had to give up one of my activities because I was too busy. Proof that time is the great brainwasher.)
So after a brief pause and a bit of reflection, I realized that it has always been like this––from the beginning of time––literally, for God, who needs no rest, found it necessary to create a day of rest for us, and even make a commandment to remind us to observe it (Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 20:8-10).
Yet despite Him putting it in place, we have always needed reminders.
“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep” Psalm 127:2)
“And he said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while’” (Mark 6:31)
And more often than not, we also need intervention.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters” (Psalm 23:2)
A quick Google search will bring up 30+ titles about resting, so, yes, I guess we do need to be told not only to rest but also how to rest. But there is one book that provides all the answers to this problem and every other issue in life if we just take the time to sit down, read, and relax.
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