Resting

It's Sunday afternoon and instead of laundry, dishes, working, shopping or cleaning, you choose to relax and do nothing for several hours. And then afterwards, you immediately feel guilty for "wasting" all that time. Why is that?

Why do we feel that spending some down time is a negative thing? Let me introduce you to another point of view.

Genesis 2:2 "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work."

Was God finished with creation on the sixth day? Was the seventh day a "wasted" day?

The Hebrew word for rest is menuha. After six days of creating all the things we enjoy in this world, the universe still lacked one thing. Menuha. Rest. God wasn't finished creating until he created rest. Rest was the capstone of creation. Without it the universe was not complete.This means that it was not simply the stopping of an activity. It was a created thing.

So what is wrong with enjoying God's creation of rest like we enjoy a beautiful sunset, a child's laughter or a bird's song? All that God made He declared as good so why shouldn't rest be just as good as the other things that He created?

Save the guilt and get some rest. God commanded it.