When God created Adam, He modeled something important to humanity. According to Scripture God created Adam on the Sixth day:
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food . . . God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Gen. 1:27 – 31
So God made Adam and Eve, and then gave them the work of being good stewards of His opulent creation. The work God gave the first woman and first man was very exciting; stimulating responsibility, and an invigorating job description. In fact, Genesis 2: 2:19 tells us that on that very first day of his existence, Adam dove into this exciting work by giving names to the creatures God had made. He, very likely, woke up on day 7 ready to get back to his exhilarating naming work. Who wouldn’t want to get back to that kind of fun?
But what actually happened on day 7 of creation? According to Genesis 2: 2 says, “On the seventh day he rested from all his work.” God rested and thus humanity rested on day 7 of the creation, but the first full day 1 of human life. Don’t miss the significance of this. Adam and Eve’s first full day of life was a day of Sabbath renewal, and not a day fulfilling their role as God’s trusted workers in His creation. Humanity didn’t work six days and then have a Sabbath. Humanity started in Sabbath and then did their work from that rest. Thus, God designed us to thrive when we work from rest, not when we work for rest. Perhaps its time to re-engineer how we’re living our lives.