What A Hypocrite!
I was in my car listening to Pastor Dudley Rutherford—one of the best preachers God has ever put on this earth—preaching on temptation through my cd player. I’d heard the sermon before, two times to be exact.
But this time was different.
He talked about some of the “don’ts” God has for us. As he talked in my mind I was checking off the commands in my head and thinking okay, check.
But then…
As if it were the first time I have ever heard it, but I know I’d heard it and read it too many times to count…he said…
Work as hard as you want for six days but rest one day. God says rest one day a week. BANG! How was I able to justify not taking one day to rest? How have I been able to lie to myself about the work I was doing? How is it that my heart had never been pierced like it was being pierced at that very moment?
I’ll give you my guess:
I was working pretty much every day…but I took half days off sometimes. I allowed myself to rest when I needed it. I would stop if my family needed me. If I got sick I stopped. Certainly the idea of taking a WHOLE day off didn’t apply to me. How in the world would I get all my work done if I took a WHOLE day off? But I love my work, so if you love it then it is not really work, besides it’s ministry, so it’s okay right? I need to work every time I get a chance, working from home I need to balance things and working every day is how I do that. Excuses, excuses, excuses!
Bottom line: I wasn’t trusting God. Even worse, I wasn’t doing what He said. I was ignoring His command to take a day off. I had “preached” to others myself how important it was to take a day off, but somehow didn’t think it applied to me.
How could I be so hypocritical? How could I be so…so…stupid!?
Solution: I started taking a day off, once a week, trusting that God will multiply my work on the other days. I am going to follow God’s command from here on out.
Stay tuned and I will let you know how it goes. As for this “stupid & hypocritical” child of God, I am so happy that God always allows us to fix whatever in our life needs fixing, because He is a God of second chances. Amen?
How about you? Do you take one day off work each week?
QI used to work 24/7. I was the office manager and the after hours staffing person for a nursing registry. And since hospitals don’t close, I was working ALL the time (literally). I would have kept going but God put a stop to it. The company closed and I’ve been unemployed since the beginning of the year. However this has been the best thing ever for my family and I. God and my family get more of my time and now I realize that He doesn’t want me to work myself into the ground. I need to rest. From now on I will take a whole day off to rest. 🙂
Lu, thank you so much for these blogs. 🙂
So glad that you are able to be home with your family now and have more time with them. Thank you for reading, I really appreciate your comment, it shows God’s faithfulness to us.
GOD has made a way for me to visit and spent time with my grand babies. My boss is not nice in any sense. He is a non believer. I kept praying for him as the Lord had a reason and purpose to be there. Even though, I am unemployed right now, I would be able to see my new grandson.
What a blessing to be able to spend time with your gand babies. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy your time! What a wonderful thing!
I do take one day off however, I am guilty but will admit, I still find work to do especially around the house. You know the usual house chores. If that is considered work? When my husband has a day off he is doing the total opposite, he takes the kids out, to the park, a movie or an indoor play area. I have to say that I am getting better at leaving the house chores for later but still trying to improve. I am so happy to have my husband in my life and the example that he is for us and our children.
Over Spring break I took the kids on an outing to go see a movie. When we got there the oldest one gave me a high five and said good job Mom, this is fun. And my daughter gave me a hug and said she was so happy to be with her family at the movies. That made me feel so good!! Children are a blessing and God knows what He is doing when He gives them to us. I realize that we’re here to teach our children but sometimes I feel that they’re here to teach us also. 🙂
As for me, I’ll continue to work on obeying the Lord’s command by taking that day off and resting, meaning no housework, just rest. 🙂
I love that your oldest gave you a high five, that’s awesome! What is more important than spending time with our kids? I love spending time with my kids! So glad that you are doing that.
Hi Lu, I also used to be a crazy workaholic, I did not trust God and thought I needed to do this to provide for my family. One day I just got sick of exhuastion and quit my high paying job, I gave my employer one month notice, as exhausted as I was I never called in sick and left on the best of terms. On my last week of employment my bosses took me to dinner to thank me for the last six years of hard work and said they owed so much to me and had no words enough to thank me and handed me a check for $15,000. Can you belief this ! I knew this was coming from God. You see I had just started to make a commitment to be faithful to God and not neglect Him and my family. Well so much more has happened to me since then (incredible stuff) but I agree with you, I agree with God on that one day to rest, I take it , things don’t get done sometimes but my body my mind and spirit always tell me to rest and be still for one day. Those days are awesome and recharge me to do all that I do. Lu your post is good , and you are humble to share with others. Love you and love your Blog. SandyMarquez
You’re a gem, thank you!
I go to church every Sunday, but I don’t take a whole day off to rest as an act of obedience. I don’t believe that commandment applies to us. How do you decide which of the Old Testament commandments carried over to the new covenant and which of them didn’t? Why just the Ten? Do the moral commandments carry over but the ritual ones don’t? Then why aren’t we going through every single commandment deciding if it is moral or not? (The Sabbath, by the way, is ritual.) It’s a very difficult issue, and I have gone back-and-forth, back-and-forth over my lifetime. My current thinking is that nine of the ten commandments were repeated in the New Testmament. One of them wasn’t. Guess which one? In fact, some would say Col 2:16 nullifies it. Just food for thought . . .
Vicki
Yes, I was aware that out of the ten the sabbath was the one that Jesus did not reiterate; however, it is my own personal conviction and obviously that of my pastor, Dudley Rutherford, the principle that God says to rest one day out of seven from work is something that we need to do for our own well-being. As for me definitely something God placed on my heart that I need to do. Thanks for your comment. I appreciate your insight.