by Tim Hall

Some brand names have become a part of the American vocabulary. Mention the name "Kellogg's" and most folks will think of breakfast cereal. "Clorox" is a laundry bleach, "Windex" is used to clean windows, and "Windows" is now the word for computer operating systems. Another brand name reveals something about our culture: "Day-Timer" is the most familiar name in time management products. With so many activities competing for our attention, this scheduling tool is a common sight with business people, soccer moms and college students alike.

People devoted to their Day-Timers would have been quite frustrated with one of God's commands to Israel. On the seventh day of the week, God commanded all work to cease throughout the land of Israel -- the Sabbath day command. "Stop work? Are you kidding me?" people of our age would ask. "I've got way too much to do. There's no way I can stop my work. Maybe I can plan a half-day or so next month."

Such protests would have been far afield of God's command. Consider this statement about the Sabbath in Exodus 34:21: "Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest" (New King James Version). Plowing time and harvest are two of the busiest times of the year for an agrarian culture. The soil has to be prepared for planting; you just can't put it off. And when the crops are ready, they've got to be harvested. Yet despite the urgency of the seasons, God commanded that work cease on Sabbath days during those two Day-Timer-packed times of the year.

Why would God give such a command? What was His point? Isaiah 58:13 may help us understand God's reasoning. God promised His blessings "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words . . ." In other words, the Sabbath day was to be a perpetual reminder that God's will was supreme above all the other business of life. Knowing God and serving Him was to be given higher priority than planting, harvesting, or any other "urgent" affairs of life.

Israel struggled with this command, just as we struggle to find time for Bible study or service to the Lord. Our Day-Timers just won't relinquish such large chunks of time! Maybe, though, it would do us well to close our Day-Timer and listen to the Day Timer. That was Moses' prayer to God in Psalm 90:12: "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." God alone knows the time of our lives. He knows how many days remain before each of us will depart from this planet. He alone can teach us how to best use the time that remains.

Yes, the demands of the day are piling up before us. But "one thing is needed" (Luke 10:41). Will we, like Mary, choose the good part?