Our family will be headed out this weekend for a week of vacation in northern Michigan. We've gotten into a rhythm of going up north at the end of July each year and we love the time. This year we will be staying on the Betsie River and I plan on attempting some fishing, something I rarely do and don't know much about. I'm genuinely looking forward to the challenge!
God built the pattern of work and then rest into creation as He modeled it in Genesis 1. The creation account ends with these words in Genesis 2:1-3: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
God worked and then God rested. Both are gifts and both are meant to be a part of our lives on a regular basis. Unfortunately, we are often shaped by the prevailing perspective of our culture, which can't seem to balance these two. Here's what I mean.
Many people give their lives to work. They work hard and they work a lot and this could be for a host of reasons. They may greatly desire the security and comfort that come from wealth and hard work is often a pathway to material wealth. They may want the power and prestige that come from moving up the corporate ladder, or they may find their identity in their career. Whatever the reason, Americans tend to grind. We have side hustles, start businesses, and do overtime. None of this is inherently bad, but it can quickly get out of balance.
On the other side of the ledger are those who overemphasize rest and leisure. While this may be less common in our culture, there's an increasing emphasis on time away, margin, and the need for space to rest. Again, this is a healthy correction in a lot of ways, but it can also get out of balance.
We need both work and rest in our lives. It's good to work hard and it's good to enjoy the gifts of God on vacation and in moments of leisure. There's even pleasure in the change from work to vacation and then back again. C.S Lewis put it like this in The Screwtape Letters:
But since He does not wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end in itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, but that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme.
I love our time up north. It's a different way of moving through each day. Our pace slows down. We meander a bit more. We participate in activities we wouldn't normally do during a regular week of life. Fishing, for example. It's fun to be away, and while I would often like to stretch the time away into two weeks rather than one, I always feel a sense of joy coming back home. I love "normal" life. I want to get back to work and the regular rhythms of life in the church. The back and forth is good and a gift from God.
I hope you are able to enjoy some time away this summer. Some of you already have and some are still waiting for your week or two. Recognize the gift of God in the vacation time, but look to the graciousness of God in the rhythm of permanence and change that vacation brings to light. You need both rest and work and it's so incredibly kind of God to order our world where we find joy in both and even in the movement from one to the other.