Testing, testing, one, two, three…

With exam season well and truly upon us, we at Llandudno Youth for Christ are well aware of the pressures that this can place upon the young people that attend our different events.

Indeed with this being the case, last Sunday evening at the start of the summer half-term we held a great social event where we took advantage of the gorgeous weather we have been having finally here in North Wales and headed out to the West Shore of Llandudno for some beach time.

We met outside the beautiful red brick building of the ‘Zion Baptist Church’, and from there headed down to the beach to play some ball games, relax and hang out together.

It was a welcome break from all of the exams and revising for everyone.

A much needed evening of rest.

This got me thinking of how good God was in giving us the ‘Sabbath’ as a rest day.

^“Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don’t do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day.” Exodus 20:8-11

I love that the word we use in the UK for a ‘vacation’ is ‘holiday’. The root of this is ‘holy day’ a day set apart, and was originally used to denote days where religious feasts and festivals took place. They were times when people stopped their regular work and rested; which included fun and celebration.

Holy day…holiday.

A time set-apart.

Like that special suit you set-apart for a special occasion, or perhaps a treat like a favourite ice-cream or chocolate that you set-apart for a special occasion.

When we set something apart, make it ‘holy’, we realise that it has special significance and importance.

The Hebrew for holy is ‘קָדוֹשׁ’ – qadosh, which can convey the sense of something high and lofty, something higher than us. Something to be honoured. So when God commanded us to set apart one day as special and honoured it was a good thing for our benefit.

Unfortunately we can all too easily see it as something we must do and tie ourselves up in legalistic red tape and this was not God’s desire when he commanded us to keep the ‘Sabbath’.

Jesus really unpacked this well for us towards the end of the gospel of Mark chapter 2.

Jesus points out that God made the ‘Sabbath’ to benefit us, to do us good, not for it to be an onerous, religious millstone around our necks.

I love how our God is good and knows that His people need to rest.  They need to set some time apart to be rested, refreshed and refocussed.

They need some holy time on a holiday.

A time to spend relaxing with God and getting His perspective on life.

I’m so glad we were able to give our young people an opportunity to do that.

Do you need a ‘holy-day’?

Do you need to set-apart a time to rest with your Maker?