It’s Labor Day and hopefully this finds you resting. Isn’t it funny that we celebrate work by resting? In fact, I think that’s exactly what the Sabbath was intended to be: a weekly celebration and enjoyment of all the things we accomplished in our labors throughout the week. This particular Labor Day is just plain bizarre. It’s the beginning of a season of a hundred decisions a day, from the schedule we keep at home or work, to how we’re going to school our children. Also, it’s an election year, and the Labor Day of election years always marks the beginning of the final campaign sprint to Election Day on November 4th. The insanity surrounding all of it simply goes without saying. It’s nuts; nothing feels normal. It feels like everything and everyone is reactionary and nothing can be planned. And yet our God loves loves loves to give His people rest. There are hundreds of verses related to His desire for our rest, but I’ll lay out two to help us decide today to rest rather than react.

As I laid my beaten head down on my pillow, I groaned, “I feel incapable.” As soon as the word incapable came out of my mouth, I knew I was right where God wants me to be, and I slipped into sweet sleep. It was no mistake that Romans 4 had been in my Bible study twice that week: “If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust Him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-Him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.” (Romans 4:4-5 MSG)