God In The Garden – A Time for Rest  

““Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.”

Exodus‬ ‭34‬:‭21‬ ‭

January. The time for new beginnings, according to culture that is. Nature guides us in a different direction. Countering humanity’s hustling narrative of “new year, new you,” nature nudges us to quiet down, settle in. The ground is frozen, the animals in hibernation, and the plants dormant. All life has slowed for the season. Don’t you feel it? The very air pressures us to procrastinate our haste, flaunting its influence through sharp inhales of its bitter thinness. 

One could gather that our all-knowing and generous God knew that we, being stubborn to our core, would need reminders from the earth itself to shepherd us to a sabbatical. The time for collecting and completing tasks will soon be upon us once more. Let’s endeavor to idle with intention; snuggle our families close, nest in the warmth of our homes, and enjoy the loving gift of graceful gentleness from our good God above. 

So delay the clearing and cleaning. Resolve yourself in the decay cloaking your garden providing safe shelter for the little lives that will benefit your crop come summer. Settle your restlessness and content yourself in the dreaming of what’s to come. There is a time for everything under the sun and the time for toiling will inevitably find its way to us again. How we can rejoice that our Father loves us so much that he deems us worthy of a time for refreshing, reviving rest!