I took a break last week. Went backpacking with an old friend along the "Lost Coast" of California. We spent three days hiking with spectacular Pacific views and sleeping on tiny empty beaches under blankets of stars. Ahhhh.
Since returning to the office a week ago, I've been buried. Buried. Yessir. I pay for my vacations dearly.
Sometimes I hesitate to take any breaks at all because I know that doing so locks me into some really, really long days when I return.
But if I'm truly modeling me life after Jesus, then taking breaks is not an option. Jesus took breaks. And he took them when he was really, really busy, really in demand. He once went up into the mountains after an entire day and night healing the sick, with people from all the surrounding villages still en route. I imagine it would have been easy to think, at this point, that there just wasn't time f or a break. But apparently this was precisely the time Jesus needed one.
I'm often temped to think, "I'm too busy serving Jesus and His Church to take a break." The truth is, I'm too busy serving to not take one. And so are you.
There's a deep place in each of us that can only be renewed by getting away and resting, by laying the work aside for awhile, by remembering that it's only by strength given by God that work gets done in the first place, and by actually trusting that God will take care of things in the end.
So it's another early morning after another late night. But deep inside I'm still. I'm experiencing His peace.
