God will heal you, but even if He doesn't, He's still God. He's no less God, whether He's healing you or not. He's no less a healer, whether He's healing you at the moment or not. He's still a healer. God is kind, no matter what He's doing.
Am I me, regardless of what I'm producing; or is my entire life and worth defined by my bricks?
In Exodus, they're in a wilderness - which in the ancient Near East, was reminiscent of a transition, or something undefined. They're moving from a life that was defined by bricks, to something better. In the movement to something better, He says:
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God. You shall not do any work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your man servant, nor maid servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger within your gates; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that's in them, and rested on the seventh. Therefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day, and sanctified it.”
A couple of observations: 1) God affirms work. He likes it. In fact, He has a basic disdain for laziness. In one place it says: don't feed a lazy person, because you'll enable his laziness; in other words: let a lazy person feel the hunger. Maybe that'll motivate him to work.
God affirms work. He likes it. The Jewish people worked six 12-hour days (72hrs). We work five eight-hour days (40hrs). No wonder why they're producing more - but they rest on that seventh.
God has meaningful work. Even in perfection, before sin, He gave them jobs to do - big jobs: name all the animals. That's a big job! He had meaningful work for them to do.
Sabbath meant (in Hebrew): to cease work, or to rest. The command is not to keep a day. The command essentially is: to be like God, and have one day that is different from every other day. Have one day in seven that's different than every other day.
Because of men, the Sabbath has evolved into a list of things you do and don't do: be bored for the Lord, in other words. That was never the point.
The point was to stop working, to have a different day, to have a day that reminds you that you are worth more than what you produce. That is something very healthy to do. The scriptures teach Sabbath, not as stuff you don't do, but as something you do, something you enter into; that for six days you're labouring, and then that seventh day, you enter into rest.
There's an interesting scripture in Hebrews that says: I want you to try. I want you to strive to enter into Gods rest - sort of an oxymoron. I want you to strive to do that.
We use time, to create space; space is just: stuff that exists in space. We use time to create space. For example, we use 40 hours of time, to create a pay cheque (space/stuff); and we spend time fellowshipping to produce relationship.
We measure a day by the rising and setting of the. We measure a month by the moon (lunar cycles). We measure a year by the rotation of the earth around the sun. So we measure time by the planets, and so we use time to create space (stuff).
Sabbath is a day where we are free from the bounds of time and space. Let me just give you a couple of definitions of Sabbath....
1) Its a day of the week to remind myself that: I am not a machine. If you want to be whole, you need that.
2) Its a day I need to know that I matter to God - not because of what I do; I matter to God - just because God loves me.