Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
(Genesis 2:3)
“Look at that beauty – all destroyed by those steel works.”
I turned my head quickly to find a stranger sidled up to me, mirroring my own gaze looking across the sea strait to the smoking chimneys of factories silhouetted above a town on the horizon, opposite the peninsula. The comment came out of nowhere and made me physically react, pushing away from the viewpoint wall and I took a step or two back. I was in a dark mood and – I am ashamed to admit – not in a frame of mind for pleasantries. The smiling man was in my face and I gave a curt “Yes,” and then walked away, heading out of the promontory offering a meek outlook on marine nature and retraced my route back towards the urban space where I had emerged an hour or two earlier.
I had no excuse for my ill behaviour. Yet as I carried on walking I started to wonder why that had just happened. There was something profound in what that man had said, and in his cheerful disposition and I knew that it was God talking to me. I had just been looking at something tranquil – the spinning rollers of white-flecked waves on that marvellous surf, and yet hardly noticed it. All I could think about was the pressures of everyday life, the “works” of various duties and responsibilities. The serenity of the endless expanse of sea was omnipresent but I favoured looking at the factory instead. It was an outward picture of an absurd inside attitude.
Isn’t that so typical of a fallible man? God has created a beautiful world to live in, and we followers of Jesus spend our days living in an incredibly exciting dynamic of salvation and yet we can allow ourselves (and it is indeed a choice) to get pulled down into drudgery and self-woe. Sometimes for no particular reason. We look at the “works” instead of the grace. I took it as both a warning and an encouragement from the Lord. The Sabbath was once marked as a day of rest and that same principle of reenvisioning and recharging in God still stands, whatever the day and whichever landscape before us.
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