“For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, 11 but during the seventh year let the land lie unploughed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. 12 “Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed. 13 “Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips.” (Exodus 23 v 10-13)
At first, I am sure no farmer thought this made sense. Every seventh year, do not plough, do not sow, and do not harvest.
This was a test of trust. Six years were to carry them through the seventh. That was God’s promise. He would do it.
But notice who benefits, for this is not to help the landowner. God has his eye on the poor and even the wild animals.
God insists on rest not only for our sake but for others. It is always about others. The same was true of the weekly Sabbath. God’s rest flowed downhill, to those with the least power to claim it for themselves.
That is still the test of our rest.
We must take the weekly Sabbath and, if possible, a sabbatical in the seventh year.
The most important thing is this: God wants us to build rest into our lives.
Not just for ourselves, but for others.
How can we help the vulnerable, those still working hard, overlooked, and in need, as we take rest? That’s what we should be asking.
The inability to rest is often a kind of idolatry. We can’t stop for all kinds of reasons. But the drug is usually because something else has become our provider.
God commands rest because he is enough.
Perhaps a field in your life needs to lie fallow for a while. Not because you are failing, but because you are trusting.
The land rested because God provided. So can you.
