God Asks Less Not More

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. - Genesis 2:2-3

Today our devotional is a chance to reflect on this passage with the help of our friends Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu. Enjoy!

Nathan T. Stucky, citing Karl Barth, points out something I had never before noticed: Sabbath rest is not a reward that God gave humanity for a productive week. The very first Sabbath day was also humans’ very first full day of existence. In other words, they hadn’t done a thing. “That’s why human participation in Sabbath rest on the seventh day of creation couldn’t be based in human accomplishment. It could be grounded only in God’s work and invitation,” Stucky writes. “The only work that humans have to reflect on at this point is God’s. . . . From the beginning, then, God gives Sabbath rest as a gift of sheer grace.”

Sabbath: It goes against everything in me to accept that God would ask us to do less, not more.

- Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu, Wholehearted Faith