School’s out and holidays are here!
For many of us August is still the month in which we can get away from it all and enjoy a well-deserved break — a bit of rest and relaxation. The month to switch off; put the tent up, put your feet up and hope that there won’t be too much rain to make the sandwiches soggy.
But should Christians have holidays? If we take time off, shouldn’t that become ‘time on’ for Christian activities, like Bible clubs and beach missions, camps, conventions and mission trips? In a world which so much needs the gospel, can we ever really justify taking time out? Well, yes and no!
Opportunities
Of course, the summer provides marvellous opportunities for reaching out with the good news of Jesus, to kids, teenagers and families. And it’s wonderful to see so many Christians volunteer to give some holiday time to this, year after year. They have a great time serving on a team. It can be terrific fun and there is nothing more fulfilling than seeing young people understand the gospel, receive Christ and take significant steps forward in their own discipleship. So, if you have never been involved and your circumstances permit it, then it would be very worthwhile to sign up as a helper on one of these ventures. If you’ve missed out this year, make it a priority next year. You will be able to give more than you think and will learn more than you can imagine.
Too busy
There is, however, a danger. Busy, enthusiastic Christians have been known to burn out, and some even to blow up. In their zeal, they have assumed that somehow being faithful and keen overrides the necessity of being human. But God has not made us ministry machines. He has made us ‘in his image’, and he is a God who rests. ‘God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done’ (Genesis 2.3). While there is no command, in this context, for human beings to observe a weekly ‘Sabbath’ (the same Hebrew word as ‘rest’), it must at least make us stop and consider that God’s rest provides a model for the rhythms of life to those who, made in his image, want to grow into his likeness.
So, we shouldn’t feel guilty when we rest. It is part of our being human. A clock cannot be wound up to strike 12 every hour; nor can we always be at ‘full stretch’. But what else does the Genesis pattern teach us? Another biblical strand of thought sees the opposite of rest not as work, but as turmoil, trouble — what we would call restlessness. There is an inner experience of rest, which, not surprisingly, can carry with it connotations of peace, the ending of hostilities, calm and satisfaction, even joy.
Time to...
If Cain’s sentence for his brother’s murder was to be ‘a restless wanderer’ (Genesis 4.12) and Israel’s unbelief kept them out of the promised land, restless and wandering in the wilderness, for 40 years (Psalm 95.10-11), then we should learn this huge potential benefit of our times off. They can be times of re-creation. They provide opportunities to step off the treadmill, away from the pressures of everyday life, with all its demands, not just for physical relaxation and refreshment, but equally for spiritual renewal. There will be time to read our Bibles in more depth, to spend more time with God in prayer, to review and reassess the patterns and priorities which have evolved in our busy lives almost unnoticed. There is time to think through God’s promises and begin to relate them to our circumstances. Time to read a more meaty book of biblical teaching, or be inspired by Christian biography and history. Time for family, time for friendships.
All this can help not only to unwind us physically, but to renew us spiritually, as we celebrate God’s faithfulness to us in keeping his promises, our relationship with him and his presence with us, along with the harmony and peace which are ours through faith in Jesus. We are not on holiday from God, but for him. So, let’s use it and enjoy it to the full. Then when we are asked those inevitable questions, on our return, we shall be able to answer, ‘Yes, a really good time, thank you!’
