Matthew Costner

Yesterday was a good day for me. I met with a few friends, went and worked out, got in the hot tub, had sushi (I love it, but it is too expensive too eat all the time), and then I did something I have never done before. I put my feet in this detoxification bath to rid myself of many of the impurities in my blood stream. It was crazy!

At the end of the day, although it was some what of a luxurious day for me, I was exhausted. However, I have been tired a lot lately. A couple of days ago, if someone had of told me I had mono, I would have believed them. Last night I got a good amount of rest though, so today I feel fine.

We all need rest. And I don’t mean a few hours a night rest. We all need to take days off where we do nothing but enjoy life, forget about our worries (even if it’s just for a minute), and pamper ourselves. I’ve said it many times before, but living life is hard! So what can we do about it? Get rest.

One of the ingredients in having enough strength for the day is getting rest. I mean for real, even on the silly game Oregon Trail, the way I can get my character better and gain strength to finish the game, is by resting. God will provide the manna, but we have to do our part too. Rest is part of that part.

It’s funny how we often make excuses not to rest though. As important as it is, and I know it is, I often end up saying I am too busy to rest. Truthfully, I’m not too busy. I’m just scared I will miss something if I go to sleep! Other times, I am scared that if I don’t get everything done that day, or week, then I will have failed. And yet on other times, if I lay around doing nothing, then I think that I wasted my day. This was the Pharisees (religious pious) view on how to rest; doing nothing and wasting their day. In their opinion anything else was wrong.

Since Jesus didn’t do what they thought should happen on the Sabbath, the Pharisees got mad. So when confronted, Jesus used the example of King David in Mark 2:25 to show the Pharisees how ridiculous and silly they were being. The Sabbath was created for our benefit. And Jesus was using one of the people they would most respect (King David) to make that point.

For the Pharisees, Sabbath rules had become more important than Sabbath rest. That is most likely why Jesus said in Mark 2:27 that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Jesus was making efforts to tell us to keep our rules and excuses away from it because we can’t “make it” without rest!

Have you rested lately? I know you and I both have tons of stuff we need to do, and Easter is here tomorrow. That means Easter egg hunts, hanging out with friends and family, eating a ton, and traveling. However, through the chaos of life and the holiday, get some rest! It’s the Good Doctor’s (God’s) orders… trust me I will be getting as much rest as possible.