Fermata Oct 29, 2021: God at Work and at Rest

Fermata is the weekly newsletter describing some of the past week’s highlights from Notes of Rest, which is my spiritual retreat ministry that interweaves text, music, and questions for the sake of cultivating stillness, introspection, and creativity in communities so that all may rest.

Recap: Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:12-15
 
This week’s Fermata comes from Notes of Rest for People in Business, held last Saturday. We sat with the newly emancipated Hebrews as they experienced God reshaping their sense of work. We saw how in Exodus God requires them to take a day of rest given God rested on the 7th day of creation. But when Moses repeats the law in Deuteronomy, the rationale shifts from an appeal to creation to the fact God liberated Israel from slavery in Egypt. God models for us how to work and rest and reminds us that the economy is not our sovereign. All of this was good news for the people on the call who were contending with businesses they own and support. God gives us the good gifts of both rest and work, both for ourselves and for those who work with us.

When you rest, who else gets to rest too? How is God liberating you from the anxieties of this economy?

May The Omnipotent Lord who rested rearrange your sense of the economy. To help you enter the rest, here's a song from one of my favorite worship leaders, Dr. Judith Christie McAllister: Like the Dew.

abundantly,
Julian