#2 What is so significant about the end of the seventh year?

What is so significant about the end of the seventh year? Why is the instruction to release debt set for this specific time in the autumn of the seventh year?

To contemplate these things, consider the creation story of Genesis 1 and 2. As a matter of fact, the first chapters of the Bible can give us insight on the characteristics of each segment of the seven time frames. For example I expect that characteristics of any day in the creation story, likely has similar characteristics to the corresponding year.

Allow me to explain, the writer tells us that human’s come into being last, on the sixth day, therefore human’s first day is a day of rest.  Then after a day of rest, six new days of work follow. This is a profound shift from normal thinking. Our typical mind set is to work, to earn time off, but the Genesis story shows us rest, as a gift, from the Creator and a day of rest as the first event humanity experiences. There are other instructions for the seventh day, seventh month, as well as the seventh year, many volumes have been written about Sabbath. There is no need for me to expand or revise the existing body of work,

However, rest before work sticks out as a uniquely gracious pattern of time management.

This gives us a clue why debt / credit needs to be minimized at the end of the seventh year. Having our finances in balance as we begin a new six years of work makes sense just like getting a good night’s sleep before a big day. But there is one more significant thought I want to pass along at this juncture.

I have come to believe and observation has taught me, that the wisdom of the instruction concerning year seven, has a lot to do with the events of year one.  The single characteristic of day one in the creation story is the advent of LIGHT and so it has been my observation, The instructions for year seven are simply to prepare you for that startling moment when the LIGHT comes on in year one. Our resources and energy should be at their highest point of flexibility and vigor as you begin the new six years of work.

Working inside this pattern will not allow you to predict the future, but it will get you ready for the future six days of work and especially the LIGHT of day one!

This pattern will protect you from the Jeff Skillings and Ken Lays of Enron 2001 and the Bernie Madoffs 2008.

Next I will write more about year one and its characteristics as well as the transition from year seven to year one which is a profound transition in the cycle, but not the only transition, that can have a startling effect. In weeks to come we will explore all seven segments of time and the transition into and out of each in order to better understand this calendar.