by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Rediscovering Rest

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.”
Exodus 23:12 English Standard Version

It’s Sunday. What are you going to do today?

• Go grocery shopping?
• Go to the mountains?
• Get work done around the house that you’ve put off all week?

It’s interesting how we make Sunday like other days only with different activities. Monday comes around and it feels like it’s Friday. We work so hard at our weekend activities that it feels…well…like work. The world around us tells us that our value is in what we do. God’s word tells us to step back and rest.

Our human nature drives us to keep pushing the envelope. Every moment we sit doing nothing is a moment wasted. It’s no wonder we struggle with getting older. We feel that we aren’t worth as much because we aren’t producing much. We act as though God doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says that we need a day of rest.

I’m right there with everyone. I take a lot of pictures of benches in various settings, but do I ever sit in them resting, thinking, praying? The word “rest” is a foreign word to me. Maybe it is to you too. And we wonder why we feel tired all the time.

What makes our rest unique is that while we’re resting we’re called to worship. In our rest we are invited to recall God’s mercy, to remember the work of Christ, and offer God our praise.

Worship has a way of resetting our lives, preparing us for the labor of the week. It reminds us that we are not alone, but we have a God who understands the brutality of our week, a God who calls us in the mercy of Jesus to rest.

He did the work for us.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado