Remember The Sabbath?

     My husband, who is a pastor, also drives the church van. We pick up children on Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Wednesday nights. The children range in age from about seven to sixteen.
     One evening, I asked one of the youngest children what he learned in Sunday School. He told me that he learned about the baby Moses, who was found floating on the river in a basket. "Oh, that is a good story!" I exclaimed. "And there is a lot more to that story...you will enjoy it!"
     "Can you tell me more?" he asked.
     I proceeded to tell the story, which continued that night. When we picked him up on Wednesday, he said, "We left off with Zipporah..." I continued with the story each time we picked him up.
     Today (Sunday morning), we were talking about the manna, and the manner in which God told His people to gather it. I explained that each person was to collect daily only as much as he/she could eat in that day. On the sixth day of the week, each person was to gather a double portion so that they would not have to work on the Sabbath. "What is the Sabbath?" he asked.
     I explained that it was a day of rest, God's holy day. I asked him if he remembered how God rested after the six days of creation. "Yes, I remember," he answered.
     "So," I said, "God commanded His people to rest on the Sabbath."
     I usually ask him questions after telling him a portion of the story, and so I asked,
"So why did God want His people to gather enough manna for two days on the day before the Sabbath?"
     "Because God was not going to make any manna on the Sabbath," he answered.
     I sat amazed...he was correct! I had expected him to say, "Because God wanted His people to rest on the Sabbath," or the 'obedience' answer, "Because He said to!"
     My husband looked at me and said, "You know, God did not expect His people to do something that He would not do Himself."
     The Sabbath, a day of rest, never ceased to belong to God. Why would I have not thought about this? The answer is that we have grown up in a selfish culture...where everything is "all about me". We look at the Sabbath as "our" day of rest...not God's.
     Not yet completely influenced by the world, a somewhat innate knowledge of God exists in children...and sometimes they teach us!
  
 Be blessed, In Jesus' Name,
     Angie