Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. (1)
The dog-days of August have come early this year. It’s hot and dry. The air conditioner labors to cool down the house, while the body longs for a fresh breeze. No one is in a hurry these days.
We are use to being in motion. Rest and leisure are sins in our culture, especially when businesses are cutting back and pushing for more productivity. “Be busy, stay busy, act busy” has become the workers’ mantra.
Yet, God is inclined to idleness.
After creating the world in 6 days, God created the Sabbath, and has rarely pressed the pedal to the metal since then. A thousand years in God’s sight is but a day! (2)
A constant cry of God’s children is, “How long, O Lord!”
God proceeds at a resting pace as we run frantic, begging for rest.
Perhaps A. B. Simpson was correct when he wrote:
Often there is nothing as godly as inactivity on our part, or nothing as harmful as restless working, for God has promised to work His sovereign will. (3)
Like most Americans, I was raised on the Puritan work ethic. Simpson’s counsel does not seem right.
If God is for us, as Paul asserts, and if God wins, as God reveals in His revelation to John, then perhaps we need to trust God, be content in His provisions, and slow down.
If we would trust God more fully, would not contentment and rest come more easily. When we trust God we drop the entanglements and perplexities of life into God’s hands and leave them there. (3)
He is the Creator of heaven and earth.
Perhaps it is time to Let God be God, and place your life into His hands.
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Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).
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Psalm 90:4
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Reimann, Jim; Cowman, L. B. E. (2008-09-02). Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotional Readings (p. 263). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.