Summer Break

Every child looks forward to summer break from school. You get a break from the monotony of the schedule of waking up early, having an early bedtime, and no schoolwork. Teachers enjoy the break from lesson planning and grading. Parents get a break when the kids go back to school. 

Everyone needs a break or vacation or a rest. Society tells us to keep going even when our body has complete exhaustion. Looking at scripture, God demands that we take a break or a rest. 

God created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day. (You can argue the time frame of those seven days because a day is like a thousand years to God, but the point remains that he took a rest from creating.) In the ten commandments, God commanded the Israelites to take a Sabbath from their work. He even commanded them to take a year of jubilee every seven years so the land could rest from planting and harvesting. 

Since God created a time for humans to rest, we must rest. We must stop with excuses and create times in our lives to rest. Unlike school children, you may not be able to take a two month break from work, but with consistent times of rest, you can become more productive in your family, friendships, and your career. 

First, put rest in your weekly schedule. You can create time with family or friends in that time, but make sure not to do any work. As a teacher, I had to develop the skill of doing work at school and be creative with lesson planning and grading while at school. Guard your time off from people who want to fill it with tasks that become burdensome, that includes the church. 

Along with scheduling a day of the week to stop and rest, schedule time in your daily schedule rest. Cut off your screen time and go to bed at a specific time. Your smartphone has a bedtime app you can use. This also helps with health. Once I got into this habit this last year, I had better results with being less tired and even lost weight

Find a hobby that relaxes you and brings creativity into your life. This means putting down the devices, unless you read from a device, and bring peace into your life with enjoyment of a hobby. You don’t have to create a masterpiece of art or even share with everyone what your hobby is, but the less time you spend online and the more you spend on something purposeful, the stronger you will become. 

God took a rest to set the example that we must rest. Don’t let others guilt-shame you into thinking that you must serve at a specific task all the time, or the church will crumble. God has more power than any human. The church will stand with or without your service. Take the time to rest and guard it from guilt-shaming people. You may need to dissolve those relationships so you can have healthy decisions in your life. 

With the heat of summer upon us, take the time to schedule in days of rest. It may be a slow start, but the more you do it, the more you will crave more. The more you rest and regather your thoughts, the better your life becomes. Let God lead you to rest this week. Who knows, you might find the one thing that you needed to be doing all along.