Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

• Deuteronomy 5:12-15

Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his laws and commands. He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. He built up the fortified cities of Judah, since the land was at peace. No one was at war with him during those years, for the Lord gave him rest.

• 2 Chronicles 14:2-6

Do we really need rest?  My mother always said, and I mean always, every time someone in the family was dragging as if on their last leg…  She would say, “There is no rest for the wicked and the righteous don’t need it.”

The first part is biblical, but out of context.  The second half is made up, and far from biblical in that God requires us to rest.

The word “rest” in its different forms like “restless” is in the NIV 508 times.  The word is mentioned in 52 books of the Bible, oddly most often in the book of 2 Kings, followed by 2 Chronicles, due to a king who “rested with his ancestors in their resting place.”  That kind of “rest” is unavoidable, and if we do not get enough rest here on earth, we may hasten that eternal rest.

I feel conflicted in that resting might dishonor my mother, so one way or the other, it seems my life will be shortened.

When we visited our grandchildren in Tennessee (oh, and our son, too) and went to the funeral in Texas, I fell about a week behind in my writing.  That is, I was down to only a week ahead.  It took me a week or so to be back to about two weeks and a few posts ahead.  I announced that fact to my wife and then, for a week, I stared at the computer screen and gave myself a headache.  I was back to only one week ahead again.  Then over the past week, I have written three posts each day, four on the day of this writing, and maybe the quality shows.

But as I write this, my legs feel like they are made out of lead.  I almost feel like reaching down with my hands and giving the legs a boost climbing the stairs.  They must not be lead legs, because I handled lead when working in the nuclear industry.  I would never be able to lift a leg-sized hunk of lead.

So, this post is basically written to ask a question, maybe it is rhetorical, but I would love comments.

If God created the heavens and the earth and us along with it, when He tells us to rest, He probably designed in us the need to rest.  Now if that is a logical assumption, and I think it is…

Who are we to think we don’t have to rest?

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.