Labor Day weekend-I want to talk about, for a moment, the flip-side of labor-rest. Or, as the Bible calls it-Sabbath. It's even a commandment: Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy. I'm not sure that we do too well with this part of the Christian life.

After all, we live, work and have our daily affairs in the context of a very busy society. In fact, you may be one of those people who find themselves always in a hurry-scurrying from one thing to another. In fact, America is in a hurry, it seems to me. Time has skyrocketed in value.

I read that a man in Florida bills his ophthalmologist ninety dollars for keeping him waiting one hour. A woman in California hires someone to do her shopping for her-out of a catalog. Twenty bucks will pay someone to pick up your cleaning. Fifteen hundred bucks will buy a fax machine...for your car.

Greeting cards can be purchased to express to your children things you want to say, but don't have time to: "Have a great day at school" or "I wish I were there to tuck you in." We're a nation full of shortcuts and fast lanes (We're the only nation earth with a mountain called "Rushmore.")

Time, according to pollster Louis Harris, "may have become the most precious commodity in the land."

Do we really have less time? Or is it just our imagination?

In a 1965 testimony before a Senate subcommittee, the future was declared to look bright for free time in America . By 1985, predicted the report, Americans would be working 22 hours a week and would be able to retire at the age of thirty eight.

The reason was that the computer age would usher in a gleaming array of advances that would do our work for us while stabilizing our economy. Microwaves, quickfix foods and food processors for the home. Computers and copiers, and now of course the internet, replacing obsolete office equipment. Everything was heading in the right direction.

An now, years later, we have everything the report promised. The computers are byting, the VCR's are recording, the fax machines are faxing. And yet the clocks are still ticking, and people are still running. The truth is, the average amount of leisure time has shrunk 37% since 1973. The average work week has increased from forty-one to forty-seven hours.

So, tomorrow, most of us take the day off to rest-to rest from our labors. I hope that you will do just that. But more importantly, I want to give you encouragement to remember that God has designed each one of us to operate most effectively by utilizing a really very tremendous gift-the gift of a Sabbath. A day of rest. A day of prayer and play. A day for renewal.