Exodus 35 gave me a fresh reminder of the right order work and rest should have in our lives.  Work, then rest, seems so intuitive to the human mind that we never stop to question this assumption.

It was because of this that I found Exodus 35 rather interesting.  This is where Moses is commanding the people to give the materials needed for building the tabernacle, if needed.  Notice, however, that Moses doesn't start off with the commands "You shall give..." etc etc etc.  That only starts in v4, where he says "This is the thing which the Lord commanded".  Before that, in v2-3, he talks about the Sabbath first!  Moses talks about the Lord's commands about rest, before going on to the Lord's commands about work.

I think there's something there that we can learn.  God made us to rest first before working.  After all, Adam's first full day was the Sabbath.  In Psalm 23, I am made to lie down in green pastures before being led beside the still waters and the paths of righteousness.  In this case, God reminded the people of His divine rest before giving them work to do for Him.

Recently I've been learning to renew my mind and take a different approach to classes.  I've had the mentality of getting my problem sets done as early as possible.  Now that in itself is not a bad policy, but when it wasn't possible I found myself stressed and worried.  I was stressed because my problem sets weren't done early.  That meant that I could not enjoy life before my problem sets were finished!  Now that's wrong thinking.  What would I do then, in the working world, where tasks to do never ever end?  I have to learn to enjoy life while work remains.  Rest even while there is work to be done.