HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div
18. Restful
We began with the quality of restlessness and we end with the quality of restful.
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:1-2).
The spiritual leader knows that ultimately the productivity of his labours rests in God and that God can do more while he is asleep than he could do while awake without God. He knows that Jesus said to his busy disciples,
“Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31).
He knows that one of the Ten Commandments was,
“Six days shall you labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:9,10).
He is not so addicted to work that he is unable to rest. He is a good steward of his life and health. He maximizes the totality of his labour by measuring the possible strains under which he can work without diminishing his efficiency of unduly shortening his life.
