In 2020, we experienced a worldwide shutdown due to the Covid pandemic. For months, we didn’t have practices to prepare for, games to cheer at, films to watch, kids’ activities to attend. Everything just stopped. We were forced to be still— something coaching families don’t do very well. But during this forced “be still” time, we were able to reset our focus. Focus on family time. Focus on real conversations with one another. Focus on our relationship with the Lord. Focus on our finances. To be honest, before this reset, our family had become so focused on the rat race of life that our conversations took place over text messages, our time with Jesus was a quick ten minutes in the morning, and we spent more money in restaurants than we would like to admit. We had become a slave to the world’s standards instead of surrendering to God’s standards as His children. Can you relate?
When God created the world, we learn in Genesis that the Earth was formless and empty.
Because of what God called “a day” starting with evening and then morning, the Israelites day started in the evening, so their day started with rest not productivity. Everything changed when they became slaves to the Egyptians and their value/ worth was solely focused on what they could produce from sunup to sundown. Even though God used Moses to deliver them from slavery physically, they still had a slavery mindset—and so can we.
Sabbath is a day we are supposed to cease working and find rest in the Lord, reminding us that God can do more through us with six days of work and one day of rest with Him than we can do with seven days on our own. This reset each week is to be still and know that God is God and we are not. As Jesus reminded us in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man.” It was created for us to stop, be still, give all our cares to the Lord and in turn go from feeling overwhelmed by the demanding world and be overwhelmed by the peace of God.
Because of Christ, we are free!