Jesus said
"The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath"
Mark 2 v 27
WHY THE LORD’S DAY IS IMPORTANT TO ME
I remember once working at British Aerospace on a very busy project and hearing that the project manager had come into work on a Sunday to try to get on top of his work load. The project manager later said that he really regretted his decision because he felt exhausted in the days that followed and the Sunday work had actually been counter-productive.
In my experience, having a complete break from work once a week is essential not just for productivity but for a person’s sanity. There can be such high pressures and responsibilities at work that it is important to be relieved of them once a week.
For the last three-and-a-half years, I have been head of a large department at Bristol University with 350 students and 70 staff. I often finish work on a Friday afternoon with unfinished reports and documents that need to be read or written by Monday morning. It can be tempting to leave it to Sunday evening to finish off the work. But I always make sure that I do the unfinished work on Saturdays, even if it means reading in the park whilst supervising children. If I can’t finish work on a Saturday then I will leave the work until Monday and tell people that the document will be delayed.
At present, we have a busy time at home because we have six children including a sixteen-year-old student from Germany who is with us for at least six months. Sporting events are a big issue now because many children’s events take place on a Sunday. My children are very enthusiastic at sport so we often have conflicts to address.
My daughter, Tabitha, recently won the Bristol Schools Cross Country Championship, coming first out of a hundred runners and winning by a huge margin of 150metres. The race was attended by Nick Rose, the ex-British international athlete. Tabitha was invited to run in a regional final to be held just a couple of weeks later, but she refused to accept the invitation because it was on the Lord’s Day. People at the event said that Tabitha would almost certainly have won the regional race judging from the pace of the winning athletes. We know that her absence has made people think about the importance of the Lord’s Day.
Professor Stuart Burgess, BSc (Eng), PhD, CEng, MIMechE, is Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol. His research areas include the study of design in nature. He previously worked in industry, designing rocket and satellite systems for the European Space Agency. He is winner of the Worshipful Company of Turners Gold Medal for the design of the solar array deployment system on the £1.4 billion ENVISAT earth observation satellite.
He has written the following books published by Day One: Hallmarks of Design; He made the stars also; The Origin of Man and has a large format booklet in preparation entitled In God’s Image.