Radical Rest
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. ( Exodus 20: 8-11) Someone has said that in our high-pressure, consumerist, business-driven culture, the most radical thing to do is to pause and do nothing. In fact, it’s not just radical, it is revolutionary. But radical is a good word to use, because it means getting to the root of things. And when considering spiritual things, returning to the Bible is a good way to get back to the root. So it is that when we return to the Bible we find that the idea of pausing, taking a rest, and not being a slave to “produc...