“The work is never done,” is a deadly statement for our generation. There always seems to be something we need to accomplish or a task that is looming around the corner taking needed emotional energy from our present moment. Deadlines have served as the motivators I need to get tasks done and give me a clear end to a project or task. The reason I need a clear end is because I always think there is something more I can do for the project or task. Everything stays “undone” in my mind because I believe there might be one more idea I could add.
In Genesis 1:31 we read, “Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!” For several years I read this passage considering humanity being created and the intimate relationship between God and humanity being “very good.” In more recent years, I realized the “very good” of this passage comes at the culmination of all of creation and our God standing back looking over everything and saying, “It is complete. It is very good.”
Sabbath rest serves as a “very good” upon our week. It is a statement of completion where we look back over our day(s) and see the work we have accomplished, the relationships we have created, and the experiences of our lives. We speak the truth of completion, recognizing everything may not be done, but we celebrate our “well done” of the week. In the Tyndale Commentary on Genesis we read, “God’s finished task is sealed in the words he rested. It is the rest of achievement, not inactivity, for he nurtures what he creates” (57).
Rest as a proclamation of completion changes our mindset from working seven days a week because there is so much to be done to a mindset of six days I work and on the seventh day I proclaim completion and that I have given my “very good.” In A Woman’s Right to Rest the author writes, “A job well done doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have done more but that all that we did was well done. So we rest” (14).
How would your life be different if you understood rest as a proclamation of completion and “it is very good”? How would a lifestyle of work six days and rest the seventh day provide the deadline and framework for the way you work?
Prayer: Lord, I have a lot to get done: Projects, practice, games, cleaning, mowing, and the list goes on. Remind me of the “very good” of completion in my life. I want the rest and need the rest. Give me the discipline and the courage to experience the completion of rest in my life each week. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.