God Rested

Genesis, the first chapter of the Bible, is pretty amazing. My favorite verse is Genesis 2:2: "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work."

When I look up "God rested" on a search engine, a bunch of sites come up with topics that are really serious and think way into this phrase. Yes, it is a good thing to have quiet time with God, but is this really what this verse about?

A lot of people use the Sabbath, the day God rested, as the day they might go to church, make the sign of the cross, and say a couple of extra prayers. This might be the day where people might spend a little time meditating. This might be the day where people acknowledge God's existence.

I have to wonder if God spent the day in meditation or what not. Whenever I think I God resting, I think of Him sleeping in or taking naps. Maybe I picture this because this is what I like to do on my day-of-rest.

Recently, though, I started to look at God's resting day a little differently when I had my youth group make a comic book of the first two chapters of Genesis. The kids, with their imaginations, designed what creation might have looked like. One kid drew about the first couple days, another did days 3 and 4, etc. I got stuck with day 7: God rested.

I had to think about what the teens were seeing: God was maybe floating around and the earth had no form. (How do you even draw that?) Then He decides to make a bunch of cool stuff like the planet, water, land, animals, plants, and humans. God takes a step back at the end of each day and acknowledges what a great job He did (He has a good self-esteem. Maybe we should all try doing this for ourselves at the end of the day.)

On the 6th day, the big project is complete. I hardly think God would sleep all day. I think this would be a cause for celebration or having a good time as a result of His creations. He could have rested by not stressing out or worrying about the task at hand, knowing there would always be tomorrow to start-up again.

My drawing ended up being one of God in a recliner, with His feet propped up. Next to Him is Michael, the angel, and they are playing the original version of Halo. Oh, yeah: God has a 2-liter of soda with Him, too. (I guess this kind of sounds like God spent the day being a nerd.)

So maybe the day-of-rest, the Sabbath, is not a day in which nothing is done. Yes, it is a holy day, but maybe this is because this is the day where it is okay to not stress out about the trials of life or work. Rather, this is the day where one can kick-back and have fun and know it is all good.