“Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.” —Leviticus 26:2 (niv)
We all need rest. Our bodies and minds need it. While scientists still don’t fully understand the mechanisms of sleep, they have proved that when we’re well rested, we think better, we learn better, and we work better.
So one of the things that delighted me when I arrived at the magazine where I currently work was an unusual line in the employee manual: The company “encourages every employee to take a minimum of three weeks’ paid vacation.” A minimum—not a maximum. It was such a neat variation on the message that you usually hear.
Our spiritual lives are no different from our professional lives—and in some ways, it’s even more crucial that we think of minimums, not maximums. In the Bible—the employee manual that God drafted for us—God lays down the minimum, setting aside the Sabbath, which even He took, according to the creation story. And yet we often fail to abide by that thoughtful recommendation, seeing rest as a luxury, not a necessity.
In God’s instructions for healthy living—and in His example—God has given us clear signals: We shouldn’t be taking as little time off as we can. We should be taking at least as much time off as we need. Who else would know better than the One Who made us?
