Creation Story Calls Us To Rest

This week’s Brilliant Insights takes us back to the story of Creation and how this story calls us to Rest. 

 A few years ago I came across a podcast called BEMA by Marty Solomon.  The BEMA Podcast is a walk-through of the context of the Bible and the Text itself, as well as surrounding history. In this podcast, Marty deconstructs our common readings of the Bible and attempts to reconstruct them through the lens of historical context. 

 I share from the creation story episode within THE V.A.L.U.E. GOAL™ because it shows God’s heart towards mankind in regard to rest. Rest is a key principle in goal setting.

 Here is my paraphrased notes from that episode. Enjoy!

 Creation story is recognized as a poem and is actually a chiasm. A chiasm (also called a chiasmus) is a literary device in which a sequence of ideas is presented and then repeated in reverse order.

 We have grown up to read it as a scientific report on how the world was made but then there are problems with the story. Plants were created on day three but they can't live without the sun and the sun wasn’t created until day four. The only measurement we have of a day is the movement of the sun so how do we know the days if the sun isn’t created until the fourth day? 

 So, if you step back, you realize that it is not a scientific explanation of how creation was made but there is something deeper. Don’t read it like a lab report. 

 Easterners communicate and read through images and pictures, not scientifically like we westerners do.

 When you step back and look at it from a literary perspective you see that it is about creating and resting. 

 You see that in the first 3 days God doesn’t create, He separates. Then in the next 3 days, God fills what he separated in the very same order. 

 The bookends of this chiasm are seen in that the world was void and without form – chaotic nothingness and then God ended on the seventh day doing nothing. 

 Westerners teach by giving a point and supporting evidence proof, logic reasonings. The Easterner believes that true learning happens not with information but with discovery. The art of discovery is everything to the Easterner so when they write their stories what they want the audience to discover is hidden and they used chiasms to do that. 

 What the writer wants you to discover is hidden in the center of the chiasm.  

 If you count the Hebrew words there is a Hebrew word that is in the center and that word is moahd, which is a word for seasons. Let’s look at day four. 

 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years (seasons - moahd). 

 This word moahd is one of four words that we translate as sabbaths or at least the idea of sabbath, festivals, partying, resting. Sabbath is what God does at the end of the poem and what he will call his people back to throughout the story – this idea of sabbath and resting. 

 If you wonder why sabbath is so important to the Jewish people it is because the Bible begins with a story about sabbath. 

 So why is moahd the treasure? 

 Let’s go back to the people who are hearing this story for the first time. It would be the Israelites who are in the desert and just came out of Egypt. 

 For four centuries Egypt has told you that your value and your worth is tied up in how many bricks you produce. Your only value is how many bricks you produce. If you can’t make bricks you have no value to the Egyptians and they will remove you from the equation and if you are removed from the equation then how will you provide for your family? If you are not there you cannot protect your wife and we all know what the Egyptians will do to the wives and daughters and sons. 

 So the very first lesson that God has to teach his people in the scriptural narrative. He says I need you to know something. I need you to know how to take a break. A break that reminds you that your value does not come from what you produce. It comes because of who you are. 

 We have a culture that is all wound up in the Egyptian narrative, it’s all wound up in production. 

 So why does God rest? Is he out of creative ideas? Is he tired? Does he need a break? God is not resting because needs to take a break, he is resting because he has done everything he needs to do for creation. God created a creation that could go somewhere on its own. These things can reproduce according to their kind. Creative power had to be instilled in it by a creator and then steps back to enjoy creation. 

 Rabbi David Fourman explained it this way. Michael Angelo had to know when to stop. If he chiseled any more it would mess up the sculpture.  

 Westerners like to say creation was perfect but perfect is a static idea. This is where perfectionism gets you hung up. 

 So now you know that at the core of creation is a call to rest. 

 This is also a core principle of THE V.A.L.U.E. GOAL™. It teaches you when to pause and why this pause is a critical key to momentum and acceleration. 

 If you would like more information on achieving goals from rest, email me at rachel@tappingtheuntapped.com, and let’s get connected. You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram. 

“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matt 11:30