Welcome to the next section of our series on Divine Health, which we started at the dawn of this year. We have dealt with Mental Health, Nutrition and Exercise. These are all necessary for a healthy state. We also observed that you need to be healthy so as to increase your chances of fulfilling God’s calling on your life. A person who dies prematurely because of ill-health may miss God’s purpose for his life. Now, we come to the aspect of rest and see that our God is not weary neither does He faint.
So, the question arises. If He does not faint, why did God rest on the last day of the first week at creation? Observe that I am avoiding saying He rested on the seventh day. That is because of the controversy concerning which day on the calendar is the appropriate day of rest. And by all means, we don’t want to get into man-made controversies. If we are doing what God called us to do – preach the Gospel – there would be little time for arguments.
It is sufficient for us to note that God rested after He completed His work of creation. Why did He do that? Especially since God is not weary. The answer is quite simple. Like everything else that God the Father and God the Son does, it is for our example. The bible itself makes that clear. That being so, we should ask ourselves how well we are doing with following the example God gave us. Your answer will be different from mine but we shall not take a pubic poll.
God Is Not Weary Even On Earth
All we say here is that our God is not weary and He does not want us to become weary by not taking enough rest. True, He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. But part of that power is to allow us obey His commands and follow His example. It is not power to go on cutting wood or breaking stone.
Notice we said go on working There is nothing wrong in cutting wood or breaking stone. Honest work only becomes a problem when you keep on doing it without a break. For example, we don’t see Jesus working without taking a break while He was on earth. As hard as Jesus worked, He also found time to rest. From time to time, He would counsel His disciples to come apart.
Somebody once made a play on Jesus’ words by saying you should come apart so that you don’t come apart. That implies that if you do not take time to rest, you will fall apart by force. And then it may be too late. May that never be our portion, in Jesus’ name. In a future post, we shall explore that more but for now, we stay with Jesus.
Isn’t God Great?
We already know that God is not weary. It stands to reason that Jesus too while on earth would not be weary. However, Jesus was operating on earth as a man and He became weary from time to time. Who but a great God could give us two different but related examples? From Heaven, He rested even though we know He does not faint and that God is not weary.
From earth, He gave us the example of His son who as God, is not weary but who as man, grew tired. You just have to love God. He is beautiful for situation. Regardless of whether you need a burst of output or you need to rest, God is there with you. We can truly do all things through Christ who strengthens us. But does that mean we should not rest when it is appropriate?
No. God is not weary and yet, He rested from all his labors. Jesus as God and man on earth, grew weary and set apart time to rest. He was thus able to complete the assignment His Father gave Him. What about me? What about you? Will we take time to rest so we can complete the assignment God has given us? As always, the choice is yours.
To your health!
Maranatha!
