The Rhythm of Life

The Rhythm of Life

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” Genesis 2:2

Life naturally has a certain rhythm. A dance, if you will, that if you can catch, makes life enjoyable. It makes life worth living because we become naturally in tuned to the way God intended for life to be lived. I think for many of us, we are out of step with what God intended. I am especially talking about us, Americans.

Traveling in European countries I am always reminded of how exhausting it can be to be American. We work like nobody’s business. We live to work and make money and do it at the expense of our health at times. But here, in Italy, there is a little something that they practice that we may know as a siesta. Italians don’t call it that. It is actually a Spanish term meaning the sixth hour, where everybody takes a midday break. They usually eat with their family and/or friends, then take a nap. Government workers work from 8am to 2pm. Store owners close down their shop during the middle of the day and reopen at a later time in the evening. So if you need to make a store run at 2pm, you better make sure they are going to be around. I made that mistake on day 1 in Rome. I totally forgot that Italians follow the rhythm of life.

When we worship God, the Creator, we relate that to the first two chapters of Genesis where we review how God created the earth and heavens in six days and rested on the seventh. One thing that I think we overlook is the part about the rest on the seventh. For many people, this is simply a reason to not go to their offices or open their stores on Sunday, or even to declare Sunday as the designated day to worship, the Creator. But the seventh day didn’t exist until God created it. And it only existed for the purpose of rest. That was why it was created. Rest is a part of creation. Rest is a part of our rhythm of life. It’s not to be simply observed on a particular day (since there is no reason to assume that creation had to occur in a literal seven days). But rest is a part of creation as a whole.

Part of the reason that Europeans, in particular, observe the siesta is because of the practicality of it. It gets hot during the midday hours and it is hard to work and to concentrate on anything really important. They know better than to keep pushing beyond what your body will let you. They know how to follow a rhythm. They take a break and spend that time doing what we all may do naturally around that time. We Americans may call it a “2:30 feeling”, but maybe that should not be met with a surge of an energy drink but a pause to seek the creator on what activity, if any we should pursue. Too bad your supervisor or CEO didn’t get that memo, but some companies are catching on. After a while, we need to take a break or we will burnout. Money is not that important that you need to kill yourself to get it. And if you are a person who is out of rhythm, picture a person on the dance floor of life off beat. That’s you. Breaking it down on a slow song. McHammering to a Jazz tune. Slow down! There is plenty of time to make money. But you might not get there if you don’t learn how to get in step with creation.