Vacations and Sabbaths

I just got back late last night from a 10 day vacation. And, while I enjoyed the time away from my regular routine very much, being the philosophical guy that I am, I got to thinking about the concept of "vacation" and how it relates to our calling as Christians. Stated a little differently, I began to think about how a "vacation" as practiced by a follower of Jesus should be different from those as practiced by others.

Perhaps a good place to start is with the need for rest. It's quite easy to see by reading the Bible that God not only created people with a need for it, but commands that we shall rest regularly. So what, exactly, is rest?

Some would say that rest is purely utilitarian -- i.e., a periodic cessation or reduction of work which allows the gathering of renewed energy to engage in continued work. While this may be true in a sense, emphasized too strongly it can promote a view of life as drudgery with rest being something that we need to get just enough of in order to be more productive. That is, it presumes that the purpose of life is "productivity".

Others would say that it's the other way around: that is, that rest is the reward toward which work is directed. But emphasized too strongly this can promote a view of work as a necessary evil which we endure to get the pleasures we're really after.

But it's probably more accurate to see both work and rest as institutions of God which are to be enjoyed both now and in eternity in their proper balance and in the proper way, each serving the other as part of a glorious whole. In some ways, it's a balance very much like giving and receiving, loving and being loved.

The Sabbath, of course, was a day which God set apart as holy to commemorate the completion of God's work of creation and his subsequent rest. And the book of Hebrews tells us that we are to seek to enter the Sabbath rest which is the completion of God's work of redemption. In neither case is God's rest the cessation of all activity -- for God continues to "uphold all things by the word of His power". The rest in each case signals the revelation of a completed work of God and the consecration of it as holy.

In the same way, our daily, weekly, and yearly "rests" can be set apart as holy times to delight in Him and to honor Him for the work that He has accomplished in, for, and through us and to consecrate ourselves to Him as we continue into the future.

Viewed this way, vacations can be seen not as occasions for self-indulgence when we are freed from the restraints of "regular life", but as times set apart to the Lord to be renewed in our primary purpose which is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

Blessings until next time.