There's so much to do in the world--so much caretaking and earthkeeping, so much filling and multiplying, so much culture to create....

But the creation story doesn't end with a work order. The first account of creation stops after a seventh day. God speaks six times on six days and then stops. God rests. But each of these days also has a night. And God rests then too! God doesn't talk all the time. God doesn't work all the time. In fact, Genesis doesn't even start with a  word. Genesis starts with the formlessness of the earth and with the Spirit of God brooding over the face of the deep. Then God speaks. You might almost say that at last God speaks. "Let there be light," says God. According to Genesis, God broke the cosmic silence with a creative word. Since then, the alternating silence and speech and silence is the rhythm of God, as old and deep in the nature of things as creation itself.

The idea right from the start is that there is a time to speak and a time to be silent, each in turn. There is a time to work and a time to rest from work, each in turn. We forget this because we live in a wired world where computers don't need to rest. But humans do. To say so, God in Genesis 1 does a remarkable thing. He creates human beings on the sixth day and then gives them the next day off. It's time for God's sabbath, which means it's also time for a human sabbath. Exodus 31:17 says that on the seventh day God rested and was refreshed. as if even God needs a break from time to time.

Perhaps we can't read that verse literally. But we can hear in it a life-giving word: our work is important, but not indispensable. Our work is important, but so is rest from work. Work is very good, but so is contemplation after work is over. And so Christians across the ages have made space in their lives to honor God's Sabbath--a space for worship, for refreshment, for the silence that comes from the very rhythm of God.

Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living, pp. 29-30