אמר רב הונא היה מהלך (בדרך או) במדבר ואינו יודע אימתי שבת מונה ששה ימים ומשמר יום אחד
חייא בר רב אומר משמר יום אחד ומונה ששה
במאי קמיפלגי
מר סבר כברייתו של עולם
ומר סבר כאדם הראשון
Rav Huna said: One who was walking along the way or in the desert, and he does not know when Shabbat occurs, he counts six days from the day that he realized that he lost track of Shabbat and then observes one day as Shabbat.
Ḥiyya bar Rav says: He first observes one day as Shabbat and then he counts six weekdays.
The Gemara explains: With regard to what do they disagree?
One Sage, Rav Huna, held: It is like the creation of the world, weekdays followed by Shabbat.
And one Sage, Ḥiyya bar Rav, held: It is like Adam, the first man, who was created on the sixth day. He observed Shabbat followed by the six days of the week.
(ד) והנה עמד על היאר. ... (שבת ס"ט:) המהלך בדרך ואינו יודע מתי שבת רב הונא אמר מונה ששה ימים ומשמר יום אחד, חייא בר רב אומר משמר יום אחד ומונה ששה.
כי ששת ימי המעשה הם השתדלות האדם ושבת היינו הסיעתא מהש"י, ורב הונא מדבר באדם שנשלם בכל, שלבו נמשך אחר רצון הש"י אז מותר לו לעשות השתדלות ואח"כ יבקש מהש"י שיגמור בעדו.
אבל בעוד שאין האדם בשלימות אז צריך לקבל עליו עול מלכות שמים קודם כל מעשה, ואם יסכים לו הש"י אז יעשה.
...
"Rav Huna said: One who was walking along the way or in the desert, and he does not know when Shabbat occurs, he counts six days from the day that he realized that he lost track of Shabbat and then observes one day as Shabbat.
Ḥiyya bar Rav says: He first observes one day as Shabbat and then he counts six weekdays."
For 6 days of action a person struggles and Shabbat is help given from the Holy One, Rav Huna is speaking about a realized person whose heart is drawn towards the holy--for such a person it is right that he struggle first and then he seeks from the Holy to complete his intended goals.
But for someone who is not yet fully realized, a person needs to first recognize God's sovereignty before acting, and if his right, then God will help him.
Midrah Otiot of Rabbi Akiva
"In the hour God said to Israel, "I am giving you the Torah," God said, "If you observing the mitzvah (commandment) of Shabbat, I will give you Olam Haba(the world to come)."
And Israel said before God, "O, Holy One, Show us an example of this Olam Haba."
God replied, "This is Shabbat."
The Sabbath
by Abraham Joshua Heschel
"He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man. Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self...The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living.
...What is so luminous about a day? What is so precious to captivate the hearts? It is because the seventh day is a mine where spirit's precious metal can be found with which to construct the palace in time, a dimension in which the human is at home with the divine; a dimension in which man aspires to approach the likeness of the divine.
...The Sabbath is the most precious present mankind has received from the treasure house of God. All week we think: The spirit is too far away, and we succumb to spiritual absenteeism, or at best we pray: Send us a little of Thy spirit. On the Sabbath the spirit stands and pleads: Accept all excellence from me...
To set apart one day a week for freedom, a day on which we would not use the instruments which have been so easily tuned into weapons of destruction, a day for being with ourselves, a day of detachment from the vulgar, of independence of external obligations, a day on which we stop worshipping the idols of technical civilization, a day on which we use no money, a day of armistice in the economic struggle with our fellow men and the forces of nature – is there any institution that holds out a great hope for man's progress than the Sabbath?"
--pp.13-14, 16, 18, 28