CONTENTS How This Book is Organized
Chapter 1
Make Connecting Your Goal
So Rest Can Produce the Paradigm Shift You Need
Chapter 2
Put the Big Stuff in First
So Rest Can Bring Simplicity
Chapter 3
Do Not Do What You Want
So Rest Can Facilitate Detoxification, Healing and Wholeness
Chapter 4
Remember and Celebrate
So Rest Can Create Intimacy
Chapter 5
Prepare Ahead
So Rest Can Teach Discipline Amid Temptations
Chapter 6
Stay at Home
So Rest Can Stimulate Family Closeness
Chapter 7
Rest in Cycles
So Rest Can Produce an Overflow that Will Bless Others
Chapter 8
Make Every Effort to Fully Connect Today
So Rest Can Foster The Anticipation of Heaven
Chapter 9
Don’t’ Do Any Work
So Rest Can be Made Holy
Appendix A
“You make the space and I will fill it”
Appendix B
The Tabernacle as a Guide for Prayer
Index of Biblical References
HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED The principles shared in this book are arranged in couplets. Each chapter contains a
practical principle which shows us what we are to do, and an underlying principle
expressed as the benefit we reap from resting. Each chapter title includes both the
practical command and the resulting benefit.
The Bible does not give dictionary-style definitions for very many things.
Regarding rest, or Sabbath, God did not choose to send out a tweet, He chose to paint a
mural that is involved and layered. If, in typical academic fashion, we take our
magnifying glass and look at just one portion of the picture we will think it is one thing,
but if we step back far enough to see the entire scene we will realize our first assumption
was terribly misguided.
Being a practical God, it seems He wanted us to discover the purpose and benefits
of rest through obedience. Resting is something you learn with your heart, not with your
head. God told the Children of Israel that rest was very important, but only as they rested
would they discover the reasons why.
I invite you to join me on this journey to learn why God places so much
importance on Sabbath.
CHAPTER 1 MAKE CONNECTING YOUR GOAL SO REST CAN PRODUCE THE PARADIGM SHIFT YOU NEED REST IS CONNECTING Sabbath, which means “rest,” is God’s gift to us so we can connect with God and family.
However, if you look up the word “rest,” you will not find connecting as one of its
meanings. But I suggest to you that connecting is the purpose of rest. How do I come to
this conclusion? Connection is the one thread that brings together all the varied meanings
and uses of the word “rest.” Intimate connection is also the one purpose that stands
behind each of God’s commands regarding Sabbath. Apart from the concepts of
closeness and connection the Bible’s regulations about Sabbath seem disjointed,
complicated and confusing. Connection is what brings it all together, makes it complete,
and keeps it simple.
The Hebrew word "Sabbath" can mean “to pause, to cease from activity, to put an
end to, to desist, to still or calm, to repose”. It can also mean "to sever, put away, leave,
rid, take away or put down”, or even “to cause to fail."1 But that is not all; it can also
mean “to celebrate”.2 In our analytical way of thinking, we look at that and see a
contradiction, for celebrating usually involves some activity; it is anything but pausing.
Furthermore, in our minds, to “sever” or “put away” are not usually associated with
“celebrating.” However, if you consider the basic purpose of rest as being to connect with
someone, then all the possible uses of the word make sense; we sometimes connect
through being still and sometimes through celebrating, and in order to connect with
someone we must often eliminate something else. As we proceed through this study we
will see how the concept of connection is the over-arching purpose of rest.3
1 Harris, Archer and Walke, in the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, (Chicago, Ill, Moody 2 Ibid. 3 You will notice that I am using the words “rest” and “Sabbath” interchangeably. One could parse and dissect these two words to find the differences between them; I choose to focus on how they point us Oswald Chambers seemed to see this same connection, for he wrote,
“Sanctification . . . should work out into rest in God which means oneness with God.”4
GOD CONNECTED WITH HIS CREATION ON DAY SEVEN I used to think that God did nothing on day seven. I was totally wrong! He chose
to do something very important, yet something different than what He had done the other
six days. He paused to connect with, and enjoy what He had created. He stopped creating
in order to celebrate. When I used to read that “God saw all that he had made, and it was
very good” (Gen. 1:31) I tended to imagine the words “very good” being spoken with a
solemn tone. Now I think we should put that into modern English like this, (an Eberhard
paraphrase): "God took a good look at everything he had made and he said, “YES,
(complete with pumped fists) I LOVE IT! It’s just the way I wanted it!” In other words,
when we read that “it was very good”, we should understand that God celebrated what he
had made! He took a whole day to celebrate, to enjoy what he had made and to connect
with it. He had rejoiced at the end of each day throughout creation week, but now he set
aside a full day just to connect, to celebrate, to enjoy. In this context doesn’t the idea of
celebration as one of the meanings of “rest” make total sense?
We could say that God rested from His work, and He rested with His work.
When you think of it in this light, don’t the words “very good” take on a richer
meaning? Doesn’t the idea of connecting make the issue of rest more meaningful and the
need for rest more obvious? God connected with His creation because He loved His
creation and He wanted to set aside special time to enjoy it. That sure does a lot more for
me than the idea I had held for many years that God worked six days and then the seventh
day He didn’t do anything at all.
CREATION SHOWS THE IMPORTANCE OF REST Notice that the last thing God created was rest. We could say that rest was the true climax
of his creative activity. Also, of all that God did during creation week, the day of rest was
the only thing that he sanctified immediately. Have you ever noticed that, in the Ten
Commandments, the fourth commandment, the one concerning the Sabbath, is the one
in the same direction. Yes, there is a day set aside for connecting with God, but we should also set aside other times for connecting with God. 4 Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, (Westwood, NJ, Barbour and company, 1963, with permission from Dodd Mead & Company, 1935), in the devotional thought for Aug 12th. that receives the most extensive treatment? Why do we give it the least amount of
emphasis today?
The very structure of the creation account highlights Sabbath rest as the high
point of creation. Let’s try to see it through Hebrew eyes. The creation account has seven
sections. Verse one has seven words; verse two has fourteen words. The words God,
earth, heavens, and light all occur in multiples of seven. The culmination of the account,
Genesis 2:2-3, consists of three Hebrew sentences each containing seven words. The
center word for all three sentences is sabbaot – “seventh day”.5 Thus the seventh day
completes all of creation. The whole creative process moves, not toward the creation of
man, but toward the establishment of rest. Sabbath was the climax of creation week.
The KJV, the ASV, the RSV the ESV, and many Jewish Rabbis translate Gen 2:2
with this meaning: “On the seventh day God finished his work”, meaning that by the end
of day six He was not quite done. Based on that interpretation, the Rabbis have long
argued the question, "What did God create on the 7th day if He ‘finished his work on the
seventh day’”? At the beginning, according to Genesis 1:2, order was lacking; but after
six days of creation there was order, there was life, and there was activity. So what was
still lacking by day seven? Rest. “Came the Sabbath, came Menuha (rest), and the
universe was complete.”6 Rest was what He was working toward all week.
In later times menuha became a synomym for the life in the world to come, for
eternal life.7
5 Marva Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly, (Grand Rapids, MI, William B. Eerdmans Pub. 2003), p. 139. 6 Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath, (New York, NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, first published in 1951), p. 22. 7 Ibid., p. 23.