One final note on the Sabbath and clergy care. In the Genesis story God reviews each stage of the creation and pronounces it good. When God creates the living creatures, God blesses them. The root word for bless carries the meaning of the power to impregnate or create life.
I think it is significant that the only time that God gives a blessing in that sequence that is not for a living creature is when God “blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.” Genesis 2:3 . I would suggest that when we take the seventh day seriously, we generate life. The opposite is also true. When we don’t pause to breathe, we slowly are ground down until there is no life left in us. Sabbath time is pregnant time.
Learning how to stop and breathe enables us to keep ourselves and our ministry alive.
