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

The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.

• 2 Chronicles 36:21

So we arrived in Jerusalem, where we restedthree days.

• Ezra 8:32

Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

• Luke 23:56

For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.”

• Hebrews 4:4

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs was trying to catch up for her lack of exercise, although she did not need any exercise at all.

This week Babs woke me by whispering in my ear. “Harold, we have to get down the road.”

“Wha … What?  The sun is up!  We’re going to be late!” I tried wiping the sleep from my eyes and charge myself into being fully awake, but somehow the battery charger was low.

Babs giggled, “No, Harold, I saw how tired you were yesterday.  I re-crunched all your numbers.  If we leave now, we can make it to our next destination with no problem.  With good travel fortunes, we will miss all the big cities at rush hour, just the lulls in traffic are shifted by one space.  You taught me well.  Now, get dressed.”

I moaned, “But I missed breakfast downstairs.”

Babs giggled again, “No, you did not.  You are very predictable if they do not have cheese omelets.  And, no, they did not.  There is a Greek yogurt with strawberries in the fridge.  There is a cinnamon roll in the microwave.  If you want it warm, you can put it on for a few seconds.  And there is a banana in your work area.  You do not like coffee very much, but there is a bottle of your caffeinated soft drink in the fridge, if you need the boost to wake up.”

I groaned, “But, Babs, I have everything planned out when I make these trips.  The added stress will counter any gain from the extra rest.”

Babs moaned, “The internet said there was an accident on the road and the road is just now back to normal traffic flow.  If we had rushed a few hours ago, you would have been even more exhausted when we got there.  Now, if we can check out within another fifteen minutes, we will hit the highway at the perfect time.”

When we pulled onto the interstate with hardly any traffic, I asked, “Was it the traffic alert on the internet or was it your sixth sense?”

Babs giggled, “1, 2, 3.” And then we sang “I don’t know” to my doorbell song.

I grumbled, “I didn’t think I would get a straight answer to that question.  When we get there, what do you want to have as a Bible study?”

Babs smiled, “The need to rest, and I already have the Scriptures picked out.”

As if we were Israelites crossing the Red Sea or the Jordan River, the traffic seemed to part before us.  We made it to our destination in record time. Okay, I never really timed it before, but we still go there before the dinner rush.

After a quick bite to eat, she got in position for the Bible Study.  I pulled over the office chair.  My one thing that I like doing is to get past the local network password and connected to the internet, but everything else was done, and after the Bible study, there would be plenty of time.

I said, “Since this is about me resting, we can start in Exodus 20.”

Babs scrunched her nose, “No, Harold.  Let’s start in Deuteronomy 5:12-15.”

I asked, “Why?  It’s the fourth Commandment whichever way you slice it.”

Babs giggled, “I know, but Deuteronomy 5 gets ignored so much.  We should not ignore the chapter, just because it’s a copy of Exodus 20, at least the Ten Commandments.”

I muttered, “It sounds like Babs being whimsical to me.”

Babs said in a husky voice, “And what’s wrong with that, big fella?”

I shook my head and laughed, “I think my travel buddy is messing with me today, but the drive to the hotel was enjoyable.  You did a great job of timing everything, and my head was just getting clear when I put the suitcases into the car.  Great timing, Babs!  But regardless of which set of words, God says that He rested on the seventh day of Creation, and we should rest also.  Our bodies are designed to need that rest.  So much sleep each night, and so much rest each week.  Our bodies tend to store up lactic acid with more exertion.  We need rest to purge that from the body.  Thus, weekly breaks help to reduce injuries.  Our muscles can perform better.  And there is a mental health improvement also.

Babs asked, “So, whether God says that you need the break or not, your body should be telling you to take that break, right?”  I nodded.  “So, why do you go on sales calls for five straight days and often we drive for two days to the next destination?”

Ouch!  She got me on that one.  “The company requires me to get from one point to the next.  They hate it when I only have four sales calls in a week, even though I sometimes fit two sales calls in the same day.  You would think I could claim that they owed me, but then, I could drive the entire distance all in one day, but if that is Saturday, I am exhausted from the week’s work.  If the travel day is Sunday, you would insist on going to church, and then I am exhausted on Monday when my real job starts.”  I knew I had just put my foot in my mouth.

Babs huffed, “I insist we go to church on Sunday because God says so, not Babs.”

I asked, “You are now referring to yourself in third person?”

Babs rolled her eyes, “As soon as I said it, it sounded weird.”

I asked, “What is the next verse?”

Babs giggled, “Humans are not the only ones that need the rest.  The Promised Land finally got rest during the 70 years of the exile.  That is 2 Chronicles 36:21 and it references Jeremiah 29:10.  So, the whole earth needs a break, but the humans keep going and going.”

I nodded, “Yes, that refers to the Sabbath Year every seven years.  Since the Israelites had pretty much ignored the Sabbath years, not giving the land a rest, not releasing the slaves, all that stuff, God made the exile seventy years to make up for the 490 years of Sabbath Years that had been ignored.  That does not work well from an agricultural point of view.  You need to restore nutrients in the soil periodically, not once every 500 years.  But it showed how much the Israelites ignored what God said.”

Babs said, “Like you sometimes.”

I protested, “Babs, just a couple of weeks ago, you woke me up early to work at a food bank distribution.  Now, you think a couple of hours extra sleep will do the trick?”

Babs grinned, and I knew I had just lost my argument, “And how do you feel after driving all that way today?”

I felt great, but was I crazy enough to admit that out loud?  I groaned, “Forget I ever brought it up, Babs.”

Babs said, “In Ezra 8:32, it says that they arrived in Jerusalem and rested for three days.  Why don’t you do that?”

I nodded, “The company would find someone who could drive farther and do more sales calls in a day as soon as I insisted on one day of rest, much less three.”

Babs moaned, “So now you blame your employer?”

I sheepishly said, “That’s my story, and I am sticking to it.”

Babs blinked a few times.  Had I actually made a point that she could not poke a hole in?  Then, she spoke, “But you showed them you were willing to do this kind of work schedule long ago.  As companies go, they even expect more from you, but you were a mouse.  You never pushed back.  Maybe that cemented your job with the company, but you do not get enough rest.  Next weekend, I am going to do the driving, and maybe Wednesday this week.  Just to give you a break.  I can stay in the car and read a few books.”

I nodded, “Okay, Babs, I appreciate your concern.  I will accept your offers to drive, but I have no idea how you knew Wednesday was my long day this week.”

Babs giggled and winked, “Okay, Luke 23:56 said that they buried Jesus, but they did not do everything.  They were preparing the spices, but they would have to go back on Sunday after the Sabbath, so they rested on the Sabbath.  Not even preparing the body of Jesus, their Savior, for burial was a good enough excuse.  They needed to remember the Sabbath and they needed to rest.”

I nodded, “You have made your point, Babs.”

“Rats!” Babs said.  “I had one more Bible Reference.  But I guess that is okay.  Hebrews 4 reminds us that God rested, and we need to rest, whether that is on Sunday or Saturday.”

I nodded, “Okay, so tomorrow, we go to church here.  Then, I will take a nap instead of watching football games.”

Babs looked at me with a puzzled look.  “You gave in too easily.  I’m thinking that Tracy’s team is playing on Monday night.”

I snickered, “No, it’s their bye week.”

Babs sighed, “It had to be one of those!  But I see that T.R.U.S.T. is playing now.  I will let you watch that game, and maybe one game tomorrow, after your nap.”

I was asleep by halftime.

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

My wife tried to help me drive, but when I drove a company vehicle or a rental vehicle for which the company was paying, I did all the driving.  And then again, she hated driving through congested areas, and sometimes there was little use of us swapping the driving.  And after her open-heart surgery, she drove so little that it made no difference at all.

And as for night football games, I might have seen one to the end in the past ten years.  When I am tired, football is better than melatonin.

And when we were on the road together, for the first several years, it was a battle on whether we saw a ball game of some sort or a movie on HBO.  But when I lost my job and we got rid of all the sports channels on cable, along with a lot of her channels, we picked up a couple of streaming services.  When we got to a hotel to visit family, she knew I had not seen much sports, and she let me have the TV remote without comment.  But the problem is that I had gotten so used to not watching sports, I worked on the computer, writing one thing or another, while she read a book, and the TV was never turned on.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.