I was out for a walk. I think it was a Tuesday. I had so much to do that it was really weighing on me. In Nehemiah it says “the people had a mind to work.” (Nehemiah 4:6)  I guess I’m like that sometimes. I have so many things that I feel I need to do and they all seem to be within God’s will and the way He is leading.

But sometimes I don’t take a break. Or I have to make a conscious effort to do so. Also, I am not one who is really feeling bound in a legal sense to “keep the Sabbath”. Paul said “One man esteems one day above the other, another esteems ever day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” (Romans 14:5)

So I don’t have a real big thing about not working on Sundays. And I had worked the rest of the afternoon Sunday after I got back from church. But I wasn’t feeling really good. I just couldn’t understand why. I was thinking about all I had to do as I was walking down the sidewalk towards the park.

I finally just shot a quick prayer up to the Lord to please help me and give me some hint or nudge as to what was wrong. Immediately my attention was drawn to a bright red lawn ornament in a yard I was passing. It was the only thing red in the whole scene I could see.

I didn’t get it. So I “thought” to the Lord, “What does that mean?” Again immediately He turned my attention a different direction and down at the end of the street was a bright red stop sign.

“Stop.”

“Oh. I get it. You want me to stop. You don’t want me to keep putting my shoulder to the bolder, to take up my cross, to lay down my life and to keep sacrificing and getting things done for You. You want me to take a day off. It doesn’t matter if a bunch of stuff doesn’t get done today. I can do it tomorrow. Maybe I could have even just taken the day off on Sunday like You were talking about on the mountain with Moses. OK, I get it. Yes sir; good idea.”

And this has happened before. I’m one of those who don’t believe we are still under the Laws of Moses. If you want some real controversy, start getting into that subject. This may mean I’m an Antinominalist. But I’ll need to do some more theology reading before I’m sure about that.

But what I’ve found is that there are all kinds of good reasons and wisdom in the Old Testament law. Yes, I eat pig. But I sure want to know it’s been overseen by government regulations or I might get trichinosis. Pig was considered unclean in the Mosaic Law and there were oodles of requirements and commandments which all had a huge amount of wisdom and reason to them. So many of them were quite scientific as well, even though back at that time they might not have had the knowledge that we do now.

I’ve learned though experience that “if you don’t make an offering, sometimes God takes a collection”. If I don’t just take a day off once a week, I end up really getting run down and tired in the next few days. When the Communists took over Russia, they tried to institute a 10 day working week, instead of 7, just to get more labor out of everyone. But it didn’t work. We just seem to have some kind of inward clock that says we need to knock it off after around 7 days. Even if we are no longer under the binding legalism of the Mosaic Law, we ignore its wisdom at our peril.

Well, thank the Lord for the operation of His Holy Spirit. On that walk, the Spirit was there to answer my prayer and even use the only red things that I could see, first the lawn ornament and then the stop sign, to get through to me that it was time for a day off.

If you’re feeling you are no longer under the law of Moses and you’re a “free man” now, you’d still better watch out if you ignore the wisdom and will of God. You’re safest if you are operating with the directions of the Holy Spirit. Then you may still be able to be guided by the Lord. And that’s really what it’s all about. “If you be led of the Spirit, then are you not under the Law.” (Galatians 5:18)