Resting. It’s not something our generation is particularly good at, nor is it a high priority for us. Rather than being present with our families, we aim to be productive. Rather than sitting with our Bibles in the morning, we settle for a podcast on the go. We are overstimulated, overworked and overly focused on the wrong things.
Maybe we don’t make time for rest because we don’t think it’s important. But the practice of resting is important to God, so it should be important to us too.
Rest shows up right away in our Bibles. After six days of creating, God rests. This idea of rest is found all throughout Scripture, including Hebrews 4:1, where the author writes:
“Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
So how can someone enter God’s rest? And what is waiting for us there?
If we go back to Genesis 2, we find Adam, the first person to experience God’s rest. On the sixth day, God made Adam. On the seventh day, God rested. Unlike the preceding six days, the Bible doesn’t tell us, “There was evening and there was morning, the seventh day.” This signals to us that God’s seventh-day rest was ongoing, which is confirmed in Hebrews 4.
This means that God is still resting. However, God’s rest does not mean idleness, nor does it mean that He became tired. God’s rest means that His creation is complete. He has finished the work of creating and is now enjoying what He made. Adam, being part of that creation, experiences rest by being in the presence of his Creator.
Adam and Eve lived in God’s perfect rest because they were in His presence. They had work to do, like caring for the garden and the animals, but the work was easy. Their work brought them joy and they did not grow weary. But when they rebelled against God’s good design, sin entered and they had to leave the restful garden.
Everything changed. They no longer enjoyed the same companionship with God and their work was no longer easy and enjoyable. It became hard. They became tired. They longed for things to return to the way they were.
Centuries passed and Eden became a distant memory. God’s people lived as slaves in Egypt and their whole lives were dedicated to “bitter work.” When the Israelites cried out to God, however, He came to their rescue. He brought them out of Egypt and promised to give them a land of their own where they could find rest from slavery—a land flowing with milk and honey, which sounds a lot like Eden.
On the way, He fed His people with bread from heaven called manna. He told them to gather it every morning. On the sixth day, they were to gather enough for two days because on the seventh day there would be no manna. God taught them that the seventh day was special, so it should be different from the others. Just as God rested on the seventh day of creation, the Israelites were now to rest on that day as well.
God used the manna to introduce the pattern of work and rest to His people. Work for six days and rest on the seventh. Gather manna for six days, then stay home with your family and rest. This rhythm was formally established a few chapters later when God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.
As He worked to distinguish Israel from the evil nations around them, He commanded that they continue this pattern. He called it the Sabbath day, named after the Hebrew word for “rest.” This day served as a weekly reminder of the example He set at creation and a reminder that they were no longer under the control of an evil ruler, but of a loving Father who knows what is best for the well-being of His children.
Every week, the Sabbath day provided dedicated time for God’s people to stop working. The physical and emotional break from work prepared them for the next workweek. But even more importantly, intentional reflection on God’s work fueled them for another week of obeying His commandments. When we spend time beholding the work of our Creator, we become more like who He intended us to be.
Although we no longer dwell in peaceful Eden and do not yet dwell in heaven, we have the Sabbath day as a reflection of both. This holy day reminds us of the garden where God walked with His children and stirs our anticipation for the day when we will enjoy that same rest again.
When it was time for the Israelites to enter the Promised Land, they didn’t believe God could bring them safely there, and they refused to move forward in faith. As a result, they were not allowed into the land flowing with milk and honey—the land that could have given them rest.
Hebrews 4:11 urges us to “strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”
Don’t make the same mistake as the Israelites. There is a rest available to you, and it is good for you. Jesus tells us this in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
The Sabbath day is not a restriction; it is a gift. It is meant to be observed with gratitude. It should be protected and prioritized. It’s a reminder of Eden and a taste of what is to come. Someday, we will experience complete and perfect rest. Until then, Jesus invites us to draw near to Him, so that we can experience another kind of rest that will daily equip us for our time here. In Matthew 11:28 He says:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
