Want to know why God doesn’t wear a watch?  Probably because it would drive him to the same distraction it drives us!  Ever find yourself racing across a parking lot or down a hallway or into a building or up a sidewalk . . . and constantly cocking your arm to check your watch?  Someone once asked Mark Buchanan what his biggest regret in life was.  He replied, “Being in a hurry.  Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me.  I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry.  But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all that rushing.”  (Spirit of Revival vol 39 no 1 p 10)  Who has time to rest when we’re in such an insane hurry?

According to the January 2008 Reader’s Digest the average American worker receives 108 emails every day.  243 million Americans own cell phones or handheld wireless devices.  Google currently indexes 3,307,998,701 web pages.  We now get more information in 72 hours than our parents likely received in a month. (Ibid p 25)  Who has time to rest!

“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).  But how can I be still when my Timex ticks so loudly?  Perhaps Calvin Miller is right, “Time itself must be surrendered to the pursuit of the depths of God.  All watches must be checked at the gates of the throne room.” (Ibid)

Isn’t that the secret to the Sabbath as well?  Checking my watch at the gates of his throne room?  “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).  But if my Blackberry’s beeping, my Timex is ticking, my laptop is flickering and my iPod is playing . . . how can I possibly check all my stresses at the gate of his Sabbath?

So here’s an idea.  What if for the Sabbath we kept time the way God did “in the beginning?”  Checking our watches at the gate, we enter his time, twenty-four hours of rest, bookended only by two glorious sunsets.  No watches . . . one friendship . . . two sunsets . . . and the three words of our very best Friend:  “Come to me.”  Can you imagine a rest more satisfying?