The Seventh Day

And on the seventh day, God rested.

God rested.

And that too was good, though Genesis doesn’t spell that out for us in the same way as it does for each of the previous days. It does tell us that God blessed the seventh day and called it holy, and that sounds pretty good to me.

In church today we sang the old Horatius Bonar hymn:

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Come unto me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one,
lay down thy head upon my breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was,
so weary, worn and sad;
I found in him a resting place,
and he has made me glad.

But it’s not something the church is generally very good at, is it? We invite people in, and instead of finding a place of peace and tranquility, they find a place of frantic frenetic frenzied activity as everyone seeks to justify their existence by doing, doing and doing. Anyone who simply sits still is frowned upon until they too sign up to join a committee or rearrange the furniture or whatever else it is that everybody else’s expectations requires.

So today, to all those feeling exhausted by other people’s expectations, I’d like to say, quite simply:

You are; and you have the right to be.

Your existence does not depend upon the endless doing foisted upon you by other people’s expectations. You can sit down and watch England v. Germany in the World Cup this afternoon if that’s what you want to do and you don’t need to justify your existence by peeling onions at the same time.

You are; and you have the right to be.

And if you’re not a football fan, you can simply sit and relax in the sunshine; or go for a walk; or read a novel. Or simply be. There’s nothing to prove:

You are; and you have the right to be.

Special thanks to a special friend who made me think of this today: you know who you are, and you, especially, have the right to be.