Charlie on why we should take holidays seriously.
I used to find holidays pointless. I know that makes me odd. When I was a teenager in particular I had thought through my Christian faith and reached the obvious conclusion that if I was going to go for this, I really needed to go for it.
So holidays meant missions, initiatives, conferences and anything else that ‘felt‘ like progress to build God’s kingdom. I had a great time but never really rested much. I do the same thing today but the Christian activities have been replaced by an internal diologue when I am supposed to be resting. I spend rest time thinking. 'Why am I not achieving more', 'why can't I do better, 'what should I be doing differently'. All valid questions.
Yet I know enough to realize that is not how I should be spending my holidays. Perhaps its getting older or perhaps its carrying greater responsibilities in my life but I have now discovered that resting is actually one of the most important spiritual disciplines that any believer can practice.
Why is this? For one very simple reason. It shows you who we are and who God is.
When you are working you are trying to accomplish things. If all you ever do is try to accomplish things, and perhaps you start to succeed, then you start to believe you are the centre of the universe. You believe that the world is only changed through your endeavors.
I find my life now to be too often a constant race to achieve things. There is always more I can do at work, always more to be done to please the boss, always issues at church that I should be doing more on, always people I have neglected, always some failure to dwell on. But the more I try to do things, the more I believe that everything good in my life is a result of what I do and can figure out the more I lose perspective on who I am.
Why do holidays matter? For the same reason that ‘sabbath’ matters. It is the time when we force ourselves to stop. This sometimes means we achieve less, maybe it even means we displease people who want things from us. Yet when we stop doing anything we are presented with the reality that we are not the sum total of our achievements. We gain perspective.
Of course this is the same of Christians and non Christians alike. But Christians are called to do something with the perspective that rest gives us. We are called to acknowledge the centrality of God in our lives.
I love quoting that Louie Giglio line: ‘I am not, but I know I AM’. That is what holidays are about for believers. Not studying ourselves, not trying to achieve things but acknowledging that God is the achiever, not us.
That is why from the foundation of the world God instituted Sabbath. It was’t because he is religious and doctrinal. It was simply that he knew life is demanding and naturally pushes us to focus on ourselves. He knew that spiritual maturity is not about self-analysis or self-achievement. It is about looking at Jesus and acknowledging our place in his world, our activity in his great plan.
The Bible puts it simply in Psalm 46: ‘Be still, and know that I am God’.
This Summer holiday why not take that to heart and remember that sometimes the most constructive thing you can do is nothing at all.