The Bald Goat

I could literally crawl into this picture and sleep in this hammock for days…

The past month or so things have been really busy at God’s Care Lawnscapes. The grass is growing and the weather has been nice so people want to spend time otside and want their yards to look nice. That is our job and at this time of year it is a busy one! Last week alone we worked over 80 hours! I am not complaining, but I am tired!

We have taken on some extra jobs lately and have been working late nights and on the weekends in order earn some extra money to purchase some much needed equipment. God’s Care is going through some growing pains. It is a good problem to have and I am thankful for it, but the days are long and never seem to end. I. Am. Tired.

Brian and I talked before we began taking on these projects about how to handle our time. For a period of time we will allow ourselves to work longer days and on Saturdays in order to reach a financial goal to purchase equipment that we need. After the goal has been met we will no longer schedule work on Saturdays. We will establish a finish line for each day so we can wrap things up and spend time with our families. These are disciplines we wanted to establish up front and agree upon. It is not easy to set these goals or keep them, but we believe it is important.

One of the key things we have built this discipline on is one of the 10 commandments from Exodus 20. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. We are not legalistic about this, but we are understanding of God’s intentions. The commandments were given to the Israelite people after they had been in captivity in Egypt. They were forced to work every day mercilessly. God knew they would retain these habits and literally work themselves to death. So he gave them a commandment.

Take a break.

Take one day of the week and don’t do anything. If it even remotely looks like work don’t do it. He had two reasons for this:

1) The human body needs time to recover and be refreshed.

2) We need to trust that God will take care of us.

It is hard to stop and rest. We all want it. We all talk about it, bet we never really do it. We typically need a vacation when we get back from our vacations because we were so nonstop frantic about vacationing! We just don’t understand how to rest. But it does us so much good to just stop and be.

When the argument comes up, “Sounds nice and all, but I don’t have time to stop and be!” then I believe the answer is, “You don’t trust God.” If this sounds harsh, well, it just might be. God knows we need rest. He commands it. And he promises to take care of us. If you think you can’t stop and rest then you don’t believe God can keep the world spinning without you.

Our work at God’s Care is labor intensive and our bodies need a chance to be rejuvenated. So we take a Sabbath and rest.

Our work is never ending. Our biggest problem is that we have too much business. If we don’t stop at least once a week then we are basically telling God that we don’t trust him to provide for us if we have to turn down some business in order to rest. We want to intentionally be a people whose actions show that we trust God.

Lord, help us learn to rest. Give us peace and rejuvenate our bodies and minds. Give us strength when we are tired. Help us learn to trust in your provisions. Thank you for loving us enough to say, “Take a break, I have this under control.”