With great insight and creativity, Dr. Matthew Sleeth writes on the importance of rest:
As a former ER physician, I treated the physical and mental effects of our always-on society in my patients. As an A+ personality type, I felt the ramifications in my health, my marriage, and my work. Then a decade ago, my family switched from a 24/7 way of life to a 24/6 rhythm. On multiple levels, taking a weekly “Stop Day” saved our lives. It can save yours, too.
Some 4,000 years ago on the Sinai Peninsula, a quick-tempered abolitionist repelled off the north face of Mount Sinai with a top ten list of thou shalls, thou shalt nots, and one remember. The fourth on his list told everyone and everything, including beasts of burden like you and me, to remember to throw life in park one day out of every seven.
This was a radical social experiment. In the pre-Moses culture, the Egyptians outdid the Beatles’ eight-day week and functioned with three ten-day weeks per month. Irrespective of whether one believes the Bible’s account or if one holds to the Cecil B. DeMille of deliverance from slavery, a weekly Stop Day began permeating culture once the Hebrew people exited from Egypt….
What is rest? Figure out what work is for you, and then don’t do it one day in seven. And then protect the right of others to rest: The Fourth Commandment specifically extends the right of stopping one day a week to children who are not literate, illegal immigrants and minimum wage workers (Exodus 20:8-11).
Read the whole Washington Post article here.