A Real Vacation

This morning I was sitting on my deck with my Bible beside me, getting ready to type in my laptop journal, when a salesman who calls on one of my brother/clients pulled in the driveway. After giving me some explanation on the paperwork he was giving me, he, having seen my Bible, asked me what was the best thing I had learned lately. My brain did what it nearly always does when put on the spot like that—it went blank.

He then got the conversation going by telling me something that he had learned lately, so we were off and rolling. The end result is that I am contemplating vacations. I’m not interested in taking one, myself, but I want to talk about them.

Our salesman, you see, realizes that it is important for him to spend time every day reading the scriptures and talking to the Lord. He knows that. He doesn’t need anyone to tell him that; he doesn’t need any sermons preached. But he deals with the same pressure every one of us deal with: the pressure to get working. We may feel the pressure in different ways—for some it is a sink full of dirty dishes or a messy house; for others it is a time clock; for others it is products that must be sold; and, for the least fortunate of us, it is the unending quest for fun and pleasure that we hope will satisfy us—but we all feel the pressure. He is torn between the loud call of the “cares of this world,” and the gentle voice that is calling him into a broad place with a table filled with plenty.

But how does one get from the one to the other? If you’ve spent your whole life heeding the wrong call, how and where can you change?

You take a vacation.

And this leads me to the point I want to make. We, as a nation, waste our vacations. A vacation is the ultimate opportunity to consider our lives, to think about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are going. If ever there is a good time to change our direction, it is then. If ever there is a good time to start a new, beneficial habit, it is then. But we waste our opportunities.

Instead, what do we do? We cram our vacations so full of activities that instead of them being a time of rest and recreation, they create a need for rest and recreation. Instead of giving us time to think and assess and change our direction, they leave us without a moment to think about anything other than how we’re going to have to work so much harder to pay the bills we’ve wracked up.

I’m not telling you what to do. If you like your life the way it is, then don’t change a thing. But if you want to change, consider this: a vacation is a great place to start.

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