Day of Rest

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Ex 20:8-11 (ESV)

I know in our fast paced society we are all starved for time and every free moment we get we desire to spend it doing something we enjoy. Often though that does not involve spending time with God or even resting from our work I understand as Christians we do not celebrate the Sabbath but God designed us to rest every seven days. The importance of taking time for yourself and to rest from your work is important for your overall health and wellbeing. When we are pushed beyond that we see reduced productivity and poor health in our lives. Instead of using Sunday as a catch up day for all that we don’t get done during the week maybe we should go back to resting and if you desire to be in Church all the better. Christians tend to live longer. Let’s look at how most Americans spend their time. When we look at how we spend the rest of our time you might find it scary or funny the average person according to Nelson ratings watches 28 hours of TV a week four hours a day. The television is on in the most American homes six hours and 47 minutes a day. We spend just as much time on the internet each month with Facebook being the number one source. The average person spends seven hours a month on Facebook. And the overall usage of computer is 20 plus hours. So we know where two days of our month have gone. I enjoy TV and the internet as well as the next person and am just as guilty of wasting time with them. Yet something has to change. We live our lives on fast forward and are missing out on what is really important a time to rest and regroup. One of the disturbing things I read was children given a choice between TV and spending time with their dads 54% would rather watch TV. The only answer I see to the shortage of time is learning better ways to manage what time you have and seeking after the right things. A lot of what we see on TV and the internet is trash and as we allow that into our lives it reflects what we show the world. That day of rest helps us to recharge with a much better source than anything on TV or the internet. I challenge you to unplug get some stuff done during those 4 hours you normally spend in front of the TV or the time you spend with Facebook. Spend some time with God and your family. I promise you time is not something you can control and everyone’s is limited. May God bless you today.