Many grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations are open 24 hours a day to make life more convenient for customers. One item they don’t sell, however, is rest–a commodity important not only to us but to God. In the book of Deuteronomy, God commands, “You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me.”
Whatever plans you’re making, whatever work you’re up to your ears in, whatever pleasures you’re enjoying, whatever sorrows, anxieties, or problems you’re in the midst of, set them aside and rest.
Like prayer, rest allows us to bring focus to our thoughts. Through it, we gain new hope and new strength. That is why we learn to trust the benevolence of God to see us through the six days of activity and return again to the seventh day of rest.
This message is adapted from a devotion written by Melissa Ramirez for Women of the ELCA.
Today on this 18th Sunday of Pentecost, we remember Francis of Assisi, renewer of the church, who died in 1226; and Theodor Fliedner, renewer of society, who died in 1864.
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