Remember the Sabbath

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
Exodus 20:8-11 (NRSV)


Do you want to avoid the sin of gluttony? Observe the Sabbath. Stop. Think about what you are doing. No matter what the activity is, whether it is work, eating, watching TV, stop and think. Think about the purpose of the activity. Think about whether you honor God by doing it. And be thankful for the privilege of doing it. That is how one avoids the sin of gluttony.

The irony of gluttony is that it is a passive sin that is committed by activity. When God created the heavens and the Earth, He was doing what was natural to Him. To stop on the seventh day took an act of will. In the same way, when a man works, he is doing what comes naturally to him since the fall. It doesn't take any thought to work every day, especially when one's survival depends on it. To take a day off is an active choice. We are naturally gluttons for work.

The most obvious way this can be tied together is with food. It is natural for a man to eat even past the point of satisfaction. It takes an act of the will to stop and think. A choice must be made to take pause and thank the Master of the Universe for His supply. So in saying grace we are, in effect, observing a Sabbath.

Now I'm going to take a break from writing. And I pray that in doing so that I will honor God in the act of writing itself.