This is the one-hundred-ninety-seventh lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.

“For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.” Leviticus 25:3-5

George Washington Carver (1864-1943) is often remembered as the peanut farmer who invented peanut butter. And where would the world be without peanut butter? But Carver was much more. He became an expert agriculturalist and led a revolution of farming methods in the South that took the vast field—exhausted and lifeless by cotton farming—and introduced methods to give the land rest and replenishment through the farming of protein-rich products like soy.

Even the land needs healing. That’s why the Year of Jubilee described in Leviticus 25 was a time for the Israelites to let the land lie fallow (i.e., not plant their crops) so that the fields would regain their nutrients and moisture. Pressed to exhaustion, the land would be of no use to anybody, becoming dustbowls and wasteland. Jubilee was rest for the land, restoration for the people, forgiveness of debt, recommitment to justice, and freedom for the slave.

George Washington Carver, this remarkable inventor and entrepreneur, was born a slave. When only an infant, he and his mother were abducted by slave raiders. His mother was sold and shipped away, but George’s master bought him back from the slave raiders in exchange for a horse. Slavery, redemption, healing. Carver eventually went to high school, then became the first black student at Simpson College, gained a masters’ degree in agriculture, and became a professor. He even invented 300 uses for peanuts, though he passed by many opportunities to own patents saying, “God gave them to me, so how can I sell them to someone else?”

We all need restoration: healing, redemption, and freedom. When we rest and remind ourselves that only God is God, then God brings healing, restoration, and life.

MAKE IT REAL

Today eliminate one thing you would normally try to squeeze into your schedule. Take that time to rest or relax with a walk. Be still and focus on the fact that only God is God.
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Mel Lawrenz (@MelLawrenz) trains an international network of Christian leaders, ministry pioneers, and thought-leaders. He served as senior pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, for ten years and now serves as Elmbrook’s teaching pastor. He has a PhD in the history of Christian thought and is on the adjunct faculty of Trinity International University. Mel’s many books include Spiritual Leadership Today: Having Deep Influence in Every Walk of Life (Zondervan, 2016). See more of Mel’s writing at WordWay.