Category: Bible study

This is an examination of specific biblical passages that help us understand God’s design for rest.

Rest is God’s gift.

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Eccl. 3:9   What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 

The passage under focus today comes immediately after the popular verses of “there’s a time to die, a time to live…” In the verses above, the preacher (the writer of Ecclesiastes), teaches that it is God’s gift for people to eat and drink and take pleasure in their work. Verse 10 and 13 show God giving us the gift of work and the gift to enjoy work. 

There was a time I would tell myself, “if worrying was a profession, that’s the job I would do.” I had a habit of thinking so much about my past and my future. I told myself that “if I do all the extra work now, I can retire early or have a better retirement.” This kind of thinking led me to working excessively and postponing my joy till retirement.

Perhaps you are like my former self. Even if you’re not, our passage today asks us to consider the balance between work and rest. Both are gifts from God. Stop cheating yourself.

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Bible Study: Making Sleep Sweet

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Proverbs 3:21-24

21My son, do not let wisdom and understanding out of your sight,
    preserve sound judgment and discretion;
22 they will be life for you,
    an ornament to grace your neck.
23 Then you will go on your way in safety,
    and your foot will not stumble.
24 When you lie down, you will not be afraid;
    when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.

You likely already know that to live a productive life and purposeful life, as Christians, we need God’s wisdom and understanding. This passage calls our attention to the fact that sleep itself also requires wisdom and understanding if it would be sweet. Contrary to the belief that rest means “doing nothing”. Rest requires work, relying on God’s wisdom and understanding to make happen. I pray that God grants us this wisdom and understanding to sleep sweetly.

Sleep is a spiritual experience: Ps 127

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Ps 127:2b: For God gives sleep to those he loves

This Psalm is one my favourites. Read the whole thing here. Let’s focus on verse 2b.

When I was in High School, I had a teacher who told us that a responsible person would sleep no more than 6 hours per day. He claimed that he sleeps for 4 hours per night and that he devotes the rest of the night time to praying and studying. He even said that if we slept more than 6 hours that we were wasting our lives and that we were lazy. He then quoted the follwing Bible passage (Prov 24:33) that says “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come upon  you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior.”

I was deeply impacted by what this teacher said and I decided to reduce my sleep. I normally slept 8-10 hours during this time. (This is around the recommended time for teenagers). Sleep felt good. But out of fear that I was going to become poor because of too much sleep, I decided to reduce my sleep. I stayed awake staring about my school textbooks till midnight and I set alarms to wake up at 4am.

After three days of doing this, I felt miserable. I was too tired to eat well. I had trouble concentrating in school. I was angry and irritable all the time. I could not even understand whatever I read in the midnight. By the end of the week, I decided to stop. I resumed my normal 8-10 hours of sleep but I felt guilty about it. About a week later, I was studying my Bible and came across this verse in Ps 127:2 “God gives sleep to his beloved.”

I heard a voice that asked me “Do you think God loves you?” I answered yes. Then I looked at this passage again and realized that if I believe God loves me, then sleep is an experience of God’s love for me.

Since that day, I go to bed every night thanking God for his love to me through sleep. Sleep is part of my spirituality. You can make it part of yours too.

(There will no posts for the rest of June. The blog is taking a break. See you first week in July.)

Boundaries: God created them.

Shola A.5 Comments

We’ve already noted that God rested on the 7th day after creating everything. But there’s more to learn from that story about rest.

When God created light on the first day, God separates light (Day) from darkness (Night). Then on day 4, God creates the greater and lesser lights. One of their functions is to keep day and night separate. In other words, the sun and moon are charged to continue an activity that God did on the first day, separating light from darkness, keeping our day distinct and separated from the night. 

Part of the challenges we face in today’s modern world especially in “developed” countries is that the availability of all-day electricity means that 1am in our houses can practically look the same as 1pm. The day and night are not separate. On top of that, when we have unhealthy work habits or have work with irregular hours, while we work away at the computer desk or wherever, we lose track of natural time (dawn, morning sunlight, noon day sun, dusk, night). We keep working into the hours when we ought to be resting.

Our main lesson here is that day and night are meant to be distinguished from one another. This was one of God’s earliest tasks in creation and the sun and moon were created to maintain the distinction. How can we comply with God’s preference that our day and night should be separate?

Say with me: God made boundaries. So will I.

Balancing life: God, work, life, play, and Rest

Shola A.2 Comments

I once heard someone say that people who are truly committed to God will not mind sacrificing their time. I agree with the general importance of sacrificing especially as believers. But I also wonder to what extent our self-sacrifice is destructive and perhaps goes against God’s command and leads us into a life of fatigue and overwork, and ultimately burn out. Here are some passages to think about.

First is the greatest commandment according to Jesus:

Matthew 22: 37-39 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ c 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

In relation to this verse is another,

1John 4: 20-21 “If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.“

The way I conceptualize these two passages is thus: I think of a balance, but one that has 3 sides instead: one for God, myself, and others. These sides have to be equal to one another. Loving God more than myself and others is not acceptable because how can I say I love God without loving my sibling? And how can I say I love my sibling without loving myself?

My encouragement to you is this: failing to rest adequately is failing to love yourself and care for yourself. How can you love others like yourself? How can you love God when you can’t love yourself and others?

Day 7: The Holiest Day of Creation

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Genesis 2:1-3 “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”

In this passage we see that God rested on the 7th day. But this is not the only thing that happens. The second thing that happens on the 7th day is that God blessed and hallowed the 7th day. Of all things that God creates in the preceding days, only the 7th day is sanctified.

Of course, we are not saying that humans and the rest of creation are not holy. There are other passages that attest to that. Within the creation story of Gen 1:1-2:3 only the 7th day is called holy and it is holy because God rested. The Hebrew word for holy here is qedesh. It is the same word that means sacredness, setting apart. It comes up severally in the Hebrew Bible as referring to God’s holy name and holy temple.

Our takeaway from the creation of the 7th day is that God’s rest from work is holy, as holy as God’s name and temple. Your rest is holy too. Say this out loud with me: my rest is holy.