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My mouth fell open at the notice my husband and I received from the HOA’s property management company.

According to the letter, our front lawn—which currently was little more than evergreen bushes and ground-covering mulch within an English garden—failed to meet HOA regulations. I showed the letter to my husband who’d once owned a landscape design company.

“Of course,” he said. “We’re still in winter, and the mulch is protecting the annuals. Tell them to wait a minute and see how our lawn looks come spring.”

Because we live in Florida, beginning in spring and continuing through the autumn months, our front lawn—our English garden—delights us with multicolor blossoms and blooms. Why? Because it rested during the winter months and was protected by the mulch.

As humans, we are much like those soon-to-bud annuals—we need our rest, which God provided when He gave us the Sabbath day. Even the land, He said, was supposed to rest every seven years (Exodus 23:11). Without that rest, our lives will begin to resemble our front lawn in winter: lifeless and dull. But with that time “away,” we become vibrant, full of color and energy.

As the mulch protected the annuals, God safeguards us with the seventh day. Science has proven that a lack of rest leads to an inability to fight against illness and disease, increases stress and anger levels (which leads to a host of problems), and results in depression, brain fatigue, and the inability to remember those little things that should not slip our minds.

This is also our day to remember God and His goodness, which is easy to spot, even when we are not in the best of places, whether physically or within our personal journeys.

Take hold of the gift of the seventh day. Doing so will result in a remarkable you, just as mulch and rest result in a lovely lawn.

(Photo courtesy of pixabay and MabelAmber.)

(For more devotions, visit Christian Devotions.)