GOD'S LABOR DAY

This is Labor Day weekend. It has always seemed odd to me that when we celebrate the gift of work we do it by ceasing our labor.

Actually, Labor Day was conceived in 1884, by Grover Cleveland as a day of honoring the working person in our country. We honor the working person by giving them a day off.

Today, it seems to me that the day serves more as a closing bracket to summer for which Memorial Day is the beginning bracket.

Nothing in our daily lives impacts the family more than the work we do. Let someone in the family lose his/her job and the family enters into extreme stress. The loss of a job is almost as stressful as losing a close loved one.

Ours is a day when most families have to have two paychecks in order to live at the level of affluence they have chosen. And when inflation eats up our buying power, the automatic solution for some of us is to get another job - part time work - work another day or two. When this happens, the gift of work becomes a curse. Relationships with God and family are suspended or put on hold, and life begins to be a grind.

Men and women were created to work, but as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven..." (3:1). There is a time to work and there is a time to cease from working. When people disregard the great rhythms of life such as work and rest, things begin to break down.

To help us remember that we were created for more than work, the Creator planned a Labor Day into every week. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work,..." (Deuteronomy 5:13-14).

If you disregard God’s "Labor Day," it won’t be long before you will find that you have become a slave to your appetites, constantly crying, like little Oliver Twist, "Please, sir, can I have more?" You will have become little more than a consumer of expensive trash - a hurrier after fantasized pleasures.

Labor Day comes around and reminds us that we are made for more than labor - so we cease from laboring on Labor Day. God’s "Labor Day" comes around weekly to remind us that there was a time when we were slaves and had to work seven days a week. But now we are God’s free people and we announce our freedom by our cessation from work. "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day" (Exodus 5:15).

On the Lord’s "Labor Day" we bring the gods we have made before the God who made us, and He frees us from their enslaving power.

And for those whose job requires them to work on Sunday? You will have to be resourceful. Find ways to celebrate your status as "God’s Free People" at other times. Wednesday may become God’s "Labor Day" for you and your family. You may even need to have worship in your house with significant others from your church family on a day other than Sunday or Wednesday.

But what ever you do, don’t let anyone steal your Labor Day!