Even When It's Not Easy

As I mentioned in a earlier blog, I'm reading through the Bible in a year even though I got started in May rather than January. So I'm in Exodus while my friends are all in the Psalms. I can't tell you how many times over the years I've read through Exodus, but today I noticed something I don't remember seeing before. Already the sabbath has been mentioned repeatedly. In one section God even prefaces yet another statement about the sabbath (31:13) with the phrase, "Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you." Then in chapter 34 I saw this sentence that I don't remember seeing before. It starts with a familiar statement, "Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest." It's the next statement that grabbed my attention today. "In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest."

I'm not much of an agriculturalist, but I know from helping Sharon with her gardens over the years that there are two times I am most involved with her gardens. Preparing and harvesting. Dig, mulch, weed, rototill. Multiply that many times over for those who actually raise the food they need to live on. Mass quantities.

So here's the nagging voice in my head (the Holy Spirit?). In this simple sentence is the implication that Israel was to obey this command from God even when it was going to be hardest to do so. Can't you hear the rationalizing. "If I don't go out there again today to get the ground ready, we'll starve." "If I don't get out there again today and get the manure turned in, the ground will be worthless." "If I don't go out there again today and get the seeds in the ground, you can forget about the harvest." If I don't get out there again today and bring in that harvest, it will rot on the vines and we'll be begging for food."

But God told Israel to do something that was very hard for them (and hasn't gotten easier in the centuries since then). He told Israel to stop. He told Israel to pray and play for an entire 24 hour period. He told them to do nothing that would increase their income (read that "harvest"). In short, God told them to trust Him enough that they would bring all of life's usual work, the wheels of commerce, the daily-ness of life, to a halt.

Lest they miss the point about trusting Him, God clearly said, "In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest." God is saying, in essence, "When it would be most difficult to justify a 24 hour rest, that's exactly what I want you to do: rest."

My point in bringing this up is not to address the issue of whether or not Christians should keep a sabbath. That's a blog for another time. My point is that when God gives a command, which He clearly says in several places in the Bible are always for our good, He does so with the implication that we are to obey that command, even when it is most difficult to do so. And then trust Him with the results.