Labor Day

Labor Day is a day to celebrate the work force by giving them a rest from it. Interestingly "rest" is a very important part of life. Even God rested on the seventh day after his creative work the previous six days. Of course, to God, in infinite time, "... a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night." (Psalm 90:4) So His seven-day stretch could have been thousands of years.

Our bodies need rest daily and, sometimes, on our journey through life we are abruptly stopped for a period of time. It may be an illness, ours or a loved one's, or a loss of some kind. It is disruptive and usually unpleasant but it reminds me of a poem I found many years ago and, through the wonders of this modern technology, I found it again. It was written by John Ruskin in the mid-1800's. I'd like to share it here. It's called "The Music in a Rest".

There is no music in a rest,
but there is the making of music in it.
In our whole life-melody
the music is broken off here and there by "rests,"
and we foolishly think we have come to the end of the tune.
God sends a time of forced leisure,
sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts,
and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives;
and we lament that our voices must be silent,
and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator.
How does the musician read the "rest"?
See him beat the time with unvarying count,
and catch up the next note true and steady,
as if no breaking place had come between.
Not without design does God write the music of our lives.
Be it ours to learn the tune, and not be dismayed at the "rests."
They are not to be slurred over,
not to be omitted,
not to destroy the melody,
not to change the keynote.
If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear.