Summer is upon us and so is a season in which many will spend some time on vacation. According the dictionary, the definition of vacation is: a period of suspension of work, study or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, recess, or holiday. While enjoying some vacation myself this week, I began pondering if this concept could be found within the scriptures. To my delight, it can be.
At a time when the crowds were pressing in on Jesus and His disciples, so much so that they did not even have time to eat a meal, Jesus said, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest awhile” (Mark 6:31).
One day, while discussing this verse with the late British evangelist Leonard Ravenhill, he commented, “If we will not come away and rest awhile, we will come apart after while.” The purpose of a vacation or a break from the routines of life, is rest and relaxation that keeps us from coming apart after awhile.
There are times during the daily grind of life, that we, like a knife, lose our edge. A proper time of rest rejuvenates body, soul and spirit, just as a sharpening stone is used to put a clean, sharp edge back on a knife blade. And just as a sharp knife is more efficient for all of its uses, rest and relaxation makes us more efficient as well.
God created us for productive labor and with proper amounts of rest thrown in, we remain productive. We were not created for vacations, vacations make us better at what we do for a living. Some think that we were created to play and that work is the necessary evil that allows us more time to play.
The same Leonard Ravenhill who said that a proper time away from our work will keep us from coming apart after awhile, also told me this, “America’s epitaph will be, ‘She entetained her self to death.’”
My friends, there is a proper balance between work and play. So, enjoy your summer vacation and let it fit you to be ever more efficient at whatever it is that you do to provide for your family, when your vacation comes to an end.
”And God said, ‘My presence will go with you and I will give you rest: (Exodus 33:4).