Rest, dear, rest.

Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Genesis 2:3)

Few weeks ago, as I was reading through Exodus and Leviticus, God spoke to me about the Sabbath and rest. Genesis 2:3 is such a beautiful representation of “rest” that I had to meditate on this for a while. God has spent 6 days creating heavens and the earth, he created all the plants, animals and even us! But after finishing all the work of creation, on 7th day, he rested. My first, simple question was “Why did he rest?” Did God, after doing a whole bunch of creating for 6 days, get tired? Is that why he rested?

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary... (Isaiah 40:28)

No, I don’t think that’s it. He is an all-powerful God, he could have worked 7 days, 70 days and 7000 years if he wanted, but it was an intentional decision on his part to take a day to “rest’. I think there is something so powerful and key in this.

I used to think God “blessed’ he seventh day and made it holy, and that’s why he rested on that day, but actually it was the other way around. He rested, and because he rested, he blessed that day. It’s so interesting that from his day of rest, his blessing came.

A lot of the sermons lately I’ve been hearing about rest was mostly focused on the part of as human, we get tired and weary as we are ministering to others. So that’s why we need to rest in the arms of Christ. That is true, but I started to re-think about the order.

We work hard, and minister to others -> We get tired and weary -> We go do Christ for rest so we can recharge.

What if it was the other way around?

We rest in his presence -> We get filled with his spirit and we are overflowing in love -> We go out and minister to others from that overflow.

What if we rested in his presence more often and not wait until we get burnt out? What if everything we do came from the place of spending time with God? What if God created rest not as a rescue plan from being burnt out but as a way to bless us?

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters. (Psalm 23:1-2)

This is one of my favorite verse in the bible, and every time I read this, I picture myself on this green hill on a sunny day. I hear the water running ever so subtly in the background and my eyes are closed. My Lord, my shepherd, he is the one who made me lie down and he is the one who led me beside the quiet waters.

From the place of rest, he will speak to us. He will fill us with his spirit. He will bless us. Not just on a Sunday, or not only when I’m are tired, but always, I pray I will find rest in him.

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10 Plagues in Exodus

When I was going through exodus this time, I had SO many questions. (Can’t even begin to list all of them here) One that made me really curious was actually the 10 plagues that happened in Egypt. It was quite painful to read through all 10 and and it got to a point where it seemed truly ridiculous for Pharaoh to keep rebelling against God. I was asking “Why did all these plagues had to happen?” Couldn’t it have been two or three?

All the vivid imagery in my head of Nile turning to bloody red mess, and fly infested foul smelling land was pretty gruesome. I’m a pretty visual person, so when I read, I picture these things in my head like a scene in a movie.

There must be something here that I’m not seeing.

What is God trying to tell us through this? What was God trying to show the Egyptians and Israelites at the time this happened? Why were all 10 of these plagues necessary? I wanted to find the significance in each of these, so I started to do some researching into what each of these plagues represented. And it DID represent something! Every single plague corresponded to Egyptian gods. For example,

● Heket – Egyptian goddess of fertility, water, renewal, had the head of a frog (this corresponds to the plague of frogs infesting people’s bedroom etc, hence it being the goddess of fertility)

● Ra – The sun god, who was the most worshipped god in Egypt. (corresponds to the three days of complete darkness)

Basically God was showing that NONE of the gods in Egypt were sovereign. There is one and only God who’s all powerful and none other even measure up. He was going over all the idols of Egypt and showing the people that no other gods or magicians can do what he does.

And then I started to see another message God was trying to tell me through this. He was also showing us what God-less world would look like with all these plagues. This goes back to Genesis, and the story of creation. All these plagues in a way, were sort of reversing the wonderful work he has done in the beginning of time.

● He said “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3) and this corresponds to the plague of darkness. (He said the light was “good”)

● And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered into one place, so that the dry land may appear.” And it was so. (Genesis 1:9) and this corresponds to the plague of blood tainting the body of water God’s created.

● And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and wild animals according to their kinds.” And it was so. (Genesis 1:24) This is a direct opposite of the plague of death of livestock.

So on.. you get the idea.

● Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7) Which obviously corresponds to the last finale, which was the plague of death of firstborn.

I was sort of in awe, there are so many symbolism and hidden meanings in the bible and it was so cool that God revealed some part of them to us.
The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant. (Psalm 25:14) I pray that I will walk in the fear of the Lord, holiness and righteousness. Lord thank you so much for your word, and all the hidden mysteries that you choose to reveal to us, Amen.