Love God, work hard, rest well

By Rob Hurtgen

I am preparing to head out for a week's worth of vacation.

This article -- which always is a joy to write -- is one of the last things that needs to be done before my phone is turned off, social media is ignored, and I start sleeping late and eating what I shouldn't.

Vacation travel often means spending hours trapped in a confined space while regularly being asked, "Are we there yet?"

Vacation is a disciplined approach of vacating one's vocation.

There are three reasons everyone needs some other-than-normal-routine time. Even if you go nowhere.

Rest is modeled by God. God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh.

He took this step not from a sense of exhaustion, but to model the priority of rest.

For our frail humanity, rest restores. Rest refreshes. Rest grants us pause to remind us we are created for more than the appointments on our calendars.

Rest is commanded by God. Exodus delivers the command for Sabbath so we will not only remember God, but that we also are created beings.

The disciplined pursuit of rest screams from the depth of our being that we are valued in God's sight.

Rest reminds us we are not chattel.

Deuteronomy reminds us again of rest. Only this time, rest presses back against the recent history of Egyptian slavery. In slavery, there was no rest, only work.

Working seven days a week, 52 weeks a year does not bring the advancement one thinks it will. It slowly eats away at your physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Vacation, the disciplined act of vacating from one's vocation, is an act that restores, proclaims intrinsic value and elevates trust in the creator over his created.

You do not have to travel to have a vacation. Just rest.

Now, how do I turn off my phone?