I hope everyone has had a good Christmas and New Year, and is ready to get back into the saddle. I know I am . . . nearly two weeks off (more or less) has done me a lot of good. Time off is especially relevant in this hectic society of ours, with our so-called Puritan work ethic, although I don’t think we necessarily should pin our over-achieving on them. We tend to work even when we aren’t working, we think we need to keep up with whatever’s going on even when it’s not between the hours of nine to five. There are some folks, of course, and I’m one of them, that are basically on call all the time. For most of us, that’s not necessary, but many of us tend to do it anyway. Just look at the rise of the cell phone from accessory, from something that you only had if you needed one, to a necessary item for us all.
Many of us—especially us, ahem, older types—can remember when that wasn’t the case. I remember the first cell phone I came into contact with, a friend’s bulky car unit that, though portable, you didn’t want to port too far. I remember being amazed, simply amazed, when we were heading down from Starkville to New Orleans, and we could call the motel saying we were going to be late. From the road! Pam and I were relatively early adopters, we had one phone and a plan that gave us 60 whole minutes per month, whether we needed them or not. Its handiness was proven when on the first day we had it, Pam called me from the car to say she had a flat tire. Of course, that meant I had to go change it . . .
And now, of course, you can get pretty near anything you want on your cell phones, they’re called “smart phones,” and I think they’re smarter than me. I used to make fun of sleek yuppies with their Blackberries, and now I’m one of them. Well, I’ll never be sleek, but you get the picture . . . the other day I caught myself checking my email at a meeting, and then answering it. I’m sure no one noticed . . .
What is wrong with this picture? Since when have we—and by we, I’m mean my generation and younger—decided we needed to be available all the time, working all the time, ready to leap into action all the time? And more importantly, what does God have to say about it all? Well, there’s one verse that addresses the problem head on: “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” That’s holy, which means set-apart, set-aside. God instituted a day of rest, and called it the Sabbath, and if there’s any reason for posting any of the Ten Commandments in any workplace, this would be it. God intends for us to rest from our normal labors, and commands us to set aside a day a week to do so. Because we pastor types work on Sundays, we usually take another day off to be our Sabbath; mine is Friday, and I try to keep it holy, to set it aside as a day of rest. I challenge you to do the same thing.
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