Take a Break

It's been a while since I've written anything. That's probably a good thing. I've had a lot of things I needed to get done. That's also partially the reason that I've decided to pop my head back out into the digital ether. I'm going to try and keep this brief though...I'm sleepy.

We Christians talk all the time about living in freedom.

"Free from the law."

"Free from sin."

"Free in Christ."

I completely agree with every one of those statements. I agree that we are free from the law and sin through Jesus. I would also go so far as to say that we live sinfully a lot of the time because of the conditioning that we've received from society here, especially on the University campus. The concept of free time is nonexistent. If you're not in class, you're expected to be in some seminar. If you're not in some seminar, you're expected to be in some orientation. If you're not in an orientation, you're expected to be in your apartment or dorm room studying furiously because all of your other time is full of classes taught by professors who don't have a clue that their class isn't the only class taught here. We wake up in the morning, put on our clothes, rush to class, to to seminars/orientations/study sessions, then come home, study, sleep for a couple of hours, and get ready to do it all again the next day.

Now don't get me wrong...I completely support working hard and being responsible. But I also support not making an idol out of an ideal. An American Ideal. Work hard, make your way to the top, live the American dream with a house, two kids (a boy and a girl, of course), a picket fence, and tax forms that contain lots of dotted i's and crossed t's so as to keep the Man off your back. Our hearts are idol factories, and this is a big one for us. We feel like if we take one second off, we're behind. We're losing time. We're getting beaten. Successful people don't take breaks.

Jesus was pretty successful, and He took a nap every now and then.

And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, adn there was a great calm. He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?"

Mark 4:36-40, emphasis added

Now, may I draw your attention to the section I italicized. He left the crowd. What, Jesus didn't stay and work until He had bags under His eyes because there was more to be done? He was tired. He needed sleep. He was fully human as well as fully God, after all. He needed a break. His disciples were the ones working their tails off, and how much did they accomplish? All they got out of it was a lesson and Jesus asking them why they had no faith.

Here are some other verses as food for thought.

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

Matthew 6:25-34

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

Exodus 20:8-11 (funny that this and idolatry are the longest two commandments...since idolatry is usually the reason we tend to break the Sabbath...)

"And he said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."

Mark 2:27

So in closing, I'd like to throw out there that I think sometimes we can sin just as much by working too hard as we can by being lazy. There are times for everything. There are times for working our tails off, and there are times for taking a break. Even Jesus did every once in a while. God the Father did when He was finished with creation in Genesis. He did that as an example for us; we weren't made for the Sabbath. It was made for us. Take a break from the idol of your creation and work and take a minute to worship God for His creation, provision, and love.