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 2:3 (niv)
My husband and I are polar opposites on many fronts, one of which is our capacity to nap. He is a world-class Sunday-afternoon napper, while if I am idle for ten consecutive minutes, I consider myself to be slacking off. There are e-mails to return, schedules to plan, meals to prepare, countless ways to “get ahead,” and somehow these things always win out.
Recently I was reading a children’s book to my daughter Prisca that told the story of God creating the world, and as if reading the account for the very first time, I was captivated by the pattern I saw. In seven days flat, He formed, He filled, and He reflected on all He had done. The pattern was good enough for God, but I’d deemed it utterly substandard for me.
For the past three Sundays, I have forced myself to give God’s pattern a try. The forming and filling part on the first six days was a breeze, but that seventh day—the reflection day—definitely took some work.
I haven’t resorted to napping just yet, but instead of using Sundays to blast into the week ahead, I’m spending the hours looking back. I think about the week that has just passed—where I went, whom I talked to, how I felt, how I grew in the depths of my own inner world. I review the evidences of God’s faithfulness that I don’t soon want to forget. And then I slow my pace long enough to tell Him thank You for the work He has done.
