It may surprise few to learn that I flunk vacations. I don’t know how to plan them, allow adequate time for them, or completely shut off from work while I’m on them. I could blame this on the fact that I'm single and it’s more work to plan a vacation with people not in your family, and less fun to go alone. But maybe it’s just me.
It may surprise some to learn that Jesus commended time away after a busy period of ministry. (As we’ll see, Jesus also kind of flunks vacation, being very responsive to the needy crowds seeking to pull him off course…) So when his disciples come back, excited, after their first mission foray, he tells them they’ve earned some quiet time:
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.
Spiritual work depletes our energy. It can give us energy in the short term – I can be really pumped up for a few hours after any kind of Spirit-filled worship or ministry. But then I find I need a nap and to recharge my batteries. And we need more than naps – we need breaks. Prayer breaks and Sabbath days, and retreats, and actual vacations – and sabbaticals and Jubilee years too. Like ground that loses nutrients if it’s over-planted, we need to rest and let our brains go fallow and our creative energies return. If we’re active in any kind of ministry, we need to allow the river of the Spirit to move through and cleanse our channels, remove the debris, reawaken the faith vision to see what is not yet.
Last Saturday I gave myself a pedicure, an activity I find tedious but necessary to the standard of vanity I uphold. As I waited for nail polish to dry, I played word games on my tablet, but found myself annoyed at being so unproductive. Guess it’s time for a vacation. (Leaving tomorrow, in fact!) When I do unplug from the to-do list, I notice that I’m more resilient, that my natural hopefulness comes back, and I start feeling the creative juices begin to flow. Not for nothing did God ordain a Sabbath day of unproductivity each week! Why is it so hard to keep that command/invitation? Even machinery needs to rest; why do we think we can keep running?
When did you last take time off – a few minutes, a day, some weeks or longer – and really let your system recharge? What gifts were you aware of in that time? What stands between you and taking more time off?
What if we thought of taking breaks as a spiritual discipline? Sabbath-keeping certainly is, but so is every rest after a time of ministry. I’m going to try something, and I invite you to join me: The next time I think I can’t take a break because I have to get one more thing done, I’m going to imagine myself in that boat with Jesus and the disciples, heading to a deserted place by themselves. Just imagine the mood – “Yay! We’re going away! And with Jesus! We’ve worked hard, we’ve seen God do amazing things through us, and now we get to rest and recharge a little. Have a retreat. Decompress. Imagine!”
And really, can anything we think we have to do for Jesus be more important than hanging out with Jesus? Isn't that where the real work happens?
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