From the Pulpit: ‘God invites us to know a vacation in Him’

Often when we “go on vacation”, it’s during the summer. Maybe you are planning a vacation sometime this month.  My brother, who lives in Canada, doesn’t use the word “vacation” when referring to taking a trip somewhere or taking some time off. Instead, he says, “I’m going on ‘holiday.’” 

So, I got thinking about that word we use when we talk about taking some time off. Why do we call it a “vacation?”  When we ‘vacate’ something, we leave it – we go away. When something is ‘vacated’ it might now be empty; what was previously occupying a certain space is no longer present.  When we “go on vacation”, we might be ‘vacating’ our homes. When we “go on vacation”, we ‘leave’ our normal routine of things to do something altogether different, like going fishing or site-seeing or sleeping in late. When we “go on vacation”, hopefully we let go of some stresses of our lives and ‘vacate’, or let go of something that is wearing us down, exhausting us.

Maybe that’s why a vacation can be such a looked-forward-to event. It renews us when we need to be refreshed. Sometimes we can become so driven that we need to intentionally set some time aside where we ‘vacate’ / we ‘let go’ of what is driving us, and then be refreshed with some time that renews us.

God knows us perfectly, completely. God knows that we can be so burdened with stresses and anxieties. God knows that our lives lack peace when we are driven by all the craziness that the world throws at us. And so, God invites us to know a vacation in Him; to let go of burdens that stress us out.  God invites us, “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) God invites us to rest in Him by faith; to quit striving, trying to prove that we are worthy of attention or of being loved.  Maybe sometimes we keep striving to take God’s place, to try to be on top of the game, whatever that “game” might be.  God invites us to “be still” in His presence, to know that He is God, and to have a ‘holiday’, every day, in Him.