麻豆约拍

A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Dr Marika Rose.

Good morning. We often talk about holidays as a chance to reset, and a similar principle shows up in the Bible. After God declares the seventh day a day of rest, a series of laws follows later in the Hebrew Bible 鈥� also known as the Old Testament 鈥� to try to build the principle of rest into the daily lives of the people of Israel. Alongside the Sabbath laws, there are also the laws of Jubilee, which declare that every seven years, the land is allowed to rest, all slaves and prisoners are to be set free, and all debts are forgiven. A reset.

We live, increasingly, in a society founded on debt, whether it鈥檚 credit card debt, mortgages, student loans, or the immensely complicated market in what the financial sector calls 鈥渇utures鈥�. A society built on debt is a society built on our promises that the future will be the same as the present, that we will carry on working hard to pay our debts, forever. This logic can spill over into our daily lives: we can get so caught up in thinking about what we owe 鈥� to banks, to our parents, to our children 鈥� that we forget that change is possible, that the future doesn鈥檛 have to be the same as the present. There鈥檚 no space for us to reset, to have our debts forgiven, to have the slate wiped clean so we can have another go; or to allow others to do the same.

God we thank you for the gift of rest, and for the possibility of a reset. Help us to be people who forgive debts, as you forgive our debts; who give ourselves and those around us the chance for a reset. Help us to imagine and work for a future that is full of rest, and of freedom. Amen