Sunday, September 23, 2007

Taking oneself too seriously!

... many executives suffering from burnout returned to the same work after an extended leave and again exhibited the same burnout symptoms within sixty days.
 
Perhaps that is why a weekly cycle of work and physical rest had to be commanded by God rather than merely suggested. As Eugene Peterson, author of "The Pastor's Sabbath," insists, "Nothing less than a command has the power to intervene in the vicious, accelerating, self-perpetuating cycle of faithless and graceless busy-ness, the only part of which we are conscious being our good intentions." Peterson describes the Sabbath as that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing. If we are not able to rest one day a week, we are taking ourselves far too seriously.
 
- Marva Dawn in "Keeping the Sabbath Wholly"

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