Sabbath

 Sabbath 

 

God’s special day of rest

 

If you spent a week at camp playing wildly in the sun, how would you feel by Friday evening when the stars came out? Pretty tired, huh? You’d be ready for a good night’s sleep and maybe a nap on Saturday. 

God set up a special rest day for the Israelites called the Sabbath – but it wasn’t because they had a crazy week at camp. 

God created the Sabbath because He had taken a rest day after He created the world. And He wanted the Israelites to do something like that. So they’d work for six days and then take a break on the seventh day, just like He did. It’s kind of like how you take a break during the school day.

The Sabbath also reminded the Israelites that someday God would give them a resting place, a place called the promised land. Did you know we have a promised land too? We’re not there yet, but someday we’ll be in heaven with God. So for us, the Sabbath is a special time to look forward to heaven!

Christians today set aside a day each week to worship God at church and to be with people we love. This special day brings us closer to Him and makes us strong for whatever the following week brings. 

 

 

Exodus 16

 

Imagine that your stomach starts to grumble and you see something falling outside your window. Is it rain? No – it’s hamburgers! Too crazy to believe? Well, something like that happened to the Israelites. When the Israelites were in the desert, God provided them with manna – bread that fell like rain from the sky. The people would gather it in baskets and then bake or boil it. It stayed good for only one day, except for the sixth day of every week. God sent extra that day and none at all the seventh day. That way the people could prepare enough food for two days and rest on the seventh day. They could just sit back, relax, spend time with God, and eat their delicious manna!

 

 

Collect fourteen rocks, and paint two of them a bright colour. Make a line of rocks with six unpainted rocks in a row and a coloured rock at the end. Then make another row just like it underneath. The pattern is clear, isn’t it? The coloured rocks are like Sabbath days, which create a pattern for our lives week after week. 

 

 

God, thank You for giving me rest.