Sabbath & Sacred Work

The irony of practicing a day of rest is that it places a higher value on our work than the workolatry (the idolatry of work) that rules our day. We learn to trust that God can do more with our six days of work and a day of rest, than we can do with seven days of work. 

Sabbath was established by God who does not subscribe to our culture’s idea of what work is. So, what is God’s idea of work? God establishes work in the Garden. In Genesis 1:26, God creates man in his image and man follows God in His work example. God gives humans the responsibility to rule over the Garden. Work starts out directed by God for God’s purposes. Adam and Eve subscribe to God’s structure for Sabbath. There is a measured time of work and a measured time of rest. 

When we subscribe to this divide of work and rest, we are subscribing to living a life in the Garden; one where we are working under God’s direction not the direction of our culture which can drive us to restlessness and overindulgence in achievement. Our identities can get carelessly mixed in with work threatening the merging of identity with our accomplishments. 

God’s picture of sacred work lets us maintain our identity which resembles His image and lets the power of who He is permeating us in our work. Now that humans are not in the garden, there is more difficulty in our work. The idea of sitting down and not touching the plow would have been scary for ancient Israelites just as it is scary today. 

 The risk factor associated with Sabbath is supposed to create a practice of trusting God with His provision towards His children.