"Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love."
Revelation 2:4, Jesus
"Even thinking of business or labor should be avoided."
The Sabbath, by Abraham Heschel
Sometimes, we just need to get out there...on the road with Jesus. No more four walls. No more deadlines. Wind in our hair. Don't fence me in.
Things happen, on the road. We unwind. Our minds get free from the worry. Our eyes escape from the clutter. Sometimes we lose cell phone coverage and contact with the real world. We wander and we get lost.
And that's good, because when we can't reach the laundry, we can't do it. When we don't see the back porch screen flapping in the wintry wind, we can't fix it. When we are two-hundred miles away, we can't come in to the office. When we are out on a drive, we can disengage from the things that drive us.
I have first hand experience. Our family recently returned from an overnight trip to a hotel with an indoor waterpark. It was just one night, but it was awesome and it was long enough to forget about laundry. It was just three hours, but it was far enough away that I couldn't get back to the office. And when we arrived at the hotel, our five-year old started hopping, our nine-year old fell silent, and our eleven year-old rediscovered his smile. My wife and I found a hot tub as the the back-porch screen continued to flap in a cold, wintry wind back home.
It was great, but there's a lot of reasons why we don't go...
We have to put in for vacation and make reservations and make sure the chickens are fed. We have to pack clothes and prepare food and take the car in for servicing. And we have to do all these things not really knowing for sure what we are going to do with all this time not working. We are so use to deadlines and demands that we aren't sure what will be left when they are gone.
But that is why God bids us to stop.
We stop working so God can work on us. We stop so that God can remind us that there is a five-year old who has been racing so hard to catch up that, when it comes to stopping, hopping is the best he can do. God tells us to stop so that a nine-year old who feels like he must yell to be heard can fall silent and a little boy who is trying so hard to be responsible can frolic in his childhood a little longer. We stop so that a husband and wife can remember that they loved each other before they became a team. We stop to be reminded that there is more to life than work.
Out on the road, we begin to see that the same forces that drive us apart in our homes are the same forces that drive us apart in our churches and in our schools. When we stop, we sometimes see that work is all that is left and that isn't enough and that isn't the plan. Our life is a love-affair with the One who gave us life and then gave us lives to love. The back porch screen can wait.
Things happen, on the road. We unwind. Our minds get free from the worry. Our eyes escape from the clutter. Sometimes we lose cell phone coverage and contact with the real world. We wander and we get lost.
And that's good, because when we can't reach the laundry, we can't do it. When we don't see the back porch screen flapping in the wintry wind, we can't fix it. When we are two-hundred miles away, we can't come in to the office. When we are out on a drive, we can disengage from the things that drive us.
I have first hand experience. Our family recently returned from an overnight trip to a hotel with an indoor waterpark. It was just one night, but it was awesome and it was long enough to forget about laundry. It was just three hours, but it was far enough away that I couldn't get back to the office. And when we arrived at the hotel, our five-year old started hopping, our nine-year old fell silent, and our eleven year-old rediscovered his smile. My wife and I found a hot tub as the the back-porch screen continued to flap in a cold, wintry wind back home.
It was great, but there's a lot of reasons why we don't go...
We have to put in for vacation and make reservations and make sure the chickens are fed. We have to pack clothes and prepare food and take the car in for servicing. And we have to do all these things not really knowing for sure what we are going to do with all this time not working. We are so use to deadlines and demands that we aren't sure what will be left when they are gone.
But that is why God bids us to stop.
We stop working so God can work on us. We stop so that God can remind us that there is a five-year old who has been racing so hard to catch up that, when it comes to stopping, hopping is the best he can do. God tells us to stop so that a nine-year old who feels like he must yell to be heard can fall silent and a little boy who is trying so hard to be responsible can frolic in his childhood a little longer. We stop so that a husband and wife can remember that they loved each other before they became a team. We stop to be reminded that there is more to life than work.
Out on the road, we begin to see that the same forces that drive us apart in our homes are the same forces that drive us apart in our churches and in our schools. When we stop, we sometimes see that work is all that is left and that isn't enough and that isn't the plan. Our life is a love-affair with the One who gave us life and then gave us lives to love. The back porch screen can wait.
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