Vacations, holidays, Days off even just the weekend — those refreshing breaks from the daily grind — what are they for? I think there are two main schools of thought on the question.
By far, the largest group of people view their time off as one of the greatest rewards of working. Those days are my time. After giving 40, 50 or 60 hours a week to my employer, I deserve a little time off for myself.
In other words, we work in order to earn this rest. If you asked 100 people what days off are for, almost certainly all 100 would respond in this way. But I suggest this is backwards.
In the Lord, we need to look at it the other way around. We aren’t here to rest. Our rest comes later: “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9).
I’m not saying we should decline to take our time off. What I’m saying is that this isn’t our reward. We don’t work in order to have the rest time, we rest in order to be able to work better.
World learned from the sabbath
Employers (formerly called “slave-owners”) used to work people every day. The Jews were the exception, using the divinely given Sabbath to rest from their daily work. Other people saw this and wanted a day off too.
Guess what happened? Employers found that their workers were much more productive when they had some rest! God’s way was shown to work better than man’s way, again.
Helping us be more productive
We need not feel guilty about time taken for relaxation and recreation with our spouse, or with our children, or with our brethren. As long as we have the right attitude about it: “This isn’t my reward. Because I’ve taken this refreshing rest, I can go back to work and get more done with fewer mistakes.”
Do I need to say that I’m not talking primarily about our working for our temporal living? While it’s true, we are to work heartily in our jobs as for the Lord, I’m mainly talking about taking some rest to be more effective in our work directly for the Lord.
No one can work non-stop without burning out. Some rest is really essential. How do you know how much recreation is legitimately helping your work in the Lord, and how much is just gratifying the flesh?
That’s a personal decision for each person to make. Only you can know that! One thing, though: If you never feel absolutely drained because of your work in the Lord, you’re probably taking too much time to relax and not doing as much as you could. Another thing: If you never get to the point where you actually feel rested and refreshed, you’ve probably picked the wrong recreations. What’s needed is a way to recharge, so you really feel like getting back to work–for the Lord, of course.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One