When God Went On Vacation Summer 97

Once upon a time, a man went to his psychiatrist and said “Doctor, I’m really worried. Every night I’ve been having the weirdest dreams. One night, I’ll dream that I’m a teepee. The next night, I’ll dream that I’m a wigwam.” The doctor thought about it for a moment and said “I know exactly what the problem is. You’re two tents.”

Unfortunately, that’s the case with many of us. We’re just too tense. In today’s fast-paced world, we become addicted to busy-ness; our schedules get overfull; and we feel like all we do is just run, run, run. There’s the pressure of finances—car payments; doctor’s bills; college tuition for the kids.

There’s the pressures of work—the boss’s expectations; the company’s performance; your own career path.

There’s the pressures of raising a family—school functions, piano lessons, Little League and soccer. Being actively involved in the church can raise your stress level, too, with Sunday School lessons to prepare, committee meetings to attend, and various ministries and projects to support.

Even something as basic as owning your own home can add stress to your life. There’s always grass to mow, furniture to be dusted, repairs to be made. And the bigger the home, the more there is to be done.

That’s why so many people today are stressed out. They’re tense, they’re hyper, they have high blood pressure. They can’t seem to slow down. Over 1 million Americans per year die of coronaries—and many of them are stress related.

We have forgotten how to do something that is very basic and very Biblical—we have forgotten how to rest. You see, if Satan can’t slow you down, he’ll speed you up. And he’ll try to get you to live your life in the red-zone of the tachometer. You’ll be just like an engine always running at peak rpms. Sooner or later, something’s got to give.

That’s why it is so important for us to get hold of this Biblical principle of rest. When you look at the Bible, you see this principle all the way through. God is trying to tell us something.

You see it in Genesis, in the Creation account, where God himself rested on the seventh day. You see it in the Sabbath Law, where God said “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… For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.”

You see it in the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, where they had been laboring literally as slaves. God led them to the Promised Land—and He called it a place of rest.

You see it in Jesus’ teaching, where He gives us that wonderful invitation: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

And of course, you see it in the Bible’s picture of heaven—the place of eternal rest.

But what I want to draw your attention to today is Jesus’ own personal example. When Jesus, the Son of God—God in human flesh—came to earth, he practiced the principle of rest. Now it seems to me that if anyone didn’t need to rest, it would have been Jesus. After all, Jesus was God. He had divine power. Divine strength. Divine resources. Surely, Jesus of all people didn’t need to rest?

And yet he did. Over and over again through the gospel accounts of his ministry, you’ll see that Jesus, the Son of God, went on vacation. The way that the Bible describes it is that he “withdrew”—he pulled away from his regular routine. He got away physically and geographically to another place. Sometimes he took his disciples with him; but sometimes he went alone.

In fact, nine times in the Gospels, we read that Jesus withdrew.

Matthew 12:15 Jesus withdrew from that place.

Matthew 14:13 Jesus withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.

Matthew 15:21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

Mark 3:7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake,

Luke 5:16 Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Jesus was modeling here a principle for living that we need to recover. It is the principle of withdrawal—the principle of vacating—of stepping aside from your hectic routine and getting away to a place where you can rest and be refreshed and rejuvenated.

As I have studied these various times in the Gospels when Jesus went on vacation, I have found that there were four purposes he was pursuing, and they all begin with the letter R.

1. Renew - He needed to renew His physical and spiritual strength.

This may come as a surprise to you, but Jesus got tired. Sure he was God, but he was also a man, and human beings get tired.

Remember when the disciples were out on the Sea of Galilee rowing their boat against the storm? Where was Jesus? He was in the bow of the boat asleep. Why was he asleep? Because he was tired, that’s why! He had just spent an exhausting day in ministry, teaching, healing the sick, giving of himself to others. Do you know how draining that can be?

Jesus often withdrew simply to rest. And that’s one of the reasons why you and I need to get away. Just to rest. To recoup our strength. To be renewed—body, soul, and mind. But we often plan our vacations in such a way as to guarantee that the one thing we aren’t going to do is rest.

Don’t look on a holiday vacation to DisneyWorld as a potential rest. Driving day and night to get there… or flying in and losing your luggage. Standing in long lines in the Florida sun to get into rides that are going to make you want to throw up. Spending exorbitant sums of money on accommodations and meals so that you feel guilty for months when you come home. You get the picture?

You go on a vacation like that and the one thing you’ll really need when you get back is a vacation to help you get over your vacation!

Now another renewal activity that Jesus pursued when he went on vacation was prayer. He often withdrew to lonely places to pray. How many of us think of prayer as an important vacation activity?

Yet what the Master is teaching us here is that a vacation can be a time for renewing and deepening your walk with God. So you’ll want to take your Bible with you. You’ll want to spend some time in prayer.

Some of the most precious times I had last summer were down on the dock at our little cottage on the lake, in the quiet of the early morning, reading a book called The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey. A vacation can be a time of spiritual renewal.

And by the way, a vacation doesn’t have to be an elaborate two week long excursion that costs alot. You can plan mini-vacations into your daily schedule. Take a blanket and a book over to Trexler Park for an afternoon. Go for a bike ride along the Lehigh Canal. There are all sorts of opportunities to “withdraw” as Jesus did.

Now the second purpose that Jesus pursued on his vacations was to…

2. Review - He needed to review his own mission and his priorities.

Look at John 6 for a moment with me. This is the well-known story of the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus is at the peak of his popularity; people by the thousands are coming to him for healing and to hear him teach. And now, to top it all off, he feeds them lunch by using one basket, two fishes, and (tell it to me…) five loaves of barley bread.

If you want to make friends with people, give them something to eat. The crowd goes nuts. They’re thinking “This guy is amazing! He heals our sick, he casts out demons, he teaches us better than anyone we’ve ever heard… and now he feeds us! What are we waiting for? Let’s make Jesus our king right now.”

Look at verse 14: After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

At the very moment when he could have been declared king of the Jews, he went on vacation. Why? Because he needed to review his own mission and priorities. God had not sent him to be a bread king to fill empty bellies, even though that’s what the people wanted him to be. God had sent Jesus to be the Living Bread, who would fill their empty hearts.

It would have been very easy for Jesus just to go with the flow and let the people have what they wanted. There’s always somebody out there who has an agenda for your life. But in the face of people’s expectations, Jesus withdrew to restore his focus.

In the same way, you and I need to withdraw—to get away from our day-to-day routine—just to take stock of the direction our life is going. Just to get in touch with our real priorities, our real values. You see the hectic pace at which we live our lives doesn’t give us a whole lot of opportunity to evaluate what we are becoming. The kind of people God really wants us to be. Our mission. In order to think about those things, we need to withdraw—to get away.

Jesus got away to renew, and to review. Thirdly, he withdrew in order to…

3. Relate - He wanted to deepen the key relationships of his life.

In Matthew 15, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon—he literally left the country—but he took his disciples with him. In Luke 9, he sent his disciples out to preach and when they came back, they withdrew with Jesus to a town called Bethsaida. In John 11, just before he went to Jerusalem to be crucified, Jesus withdrew to a region near the desert, to a little village called Ephraim where he stayed with his disciples.

Jesus used these “vacation” times to deepen his relationship with his disciples. To be with them, to teach them, to enjoy their company. They were the key people in his life. But he could only really build into their lives away from the distractions, away from the busy-ness, away from the pressures of daily life.

And that’s another good reason for us to make sure that we get away. Vacations can be strategic times for building relationships—our marriage relationship, our relationship with our children, our relationships within our extended family. They can be times of deepening friendships and building strong bonds.

One of the greatest memories of my childhood is the wonderful vacations we took as a family. We didn’t spend a lot of money, because we didn’t have a lot of money to spend. But we always had the best vacations. And Carolyn will say the same thing about her family.

I guess that’s why we have always placed a very high priority on family vacations. They form part of the glue that keeps our family together. Part of the tragedy of American families today is that we all seem to be going in different directions.

Vacations are a great way of building a shared pool of family memories: of camping in the rain; floating through the Arizona desert on an inner tube; learning how to waterski; catching that first fish. Our kids are going to look back on these with fondness, the same way that I look back on my childhood vacations with my family.

Don’t miss out on vacations. They are well worth the investment, and your family will be stronger for it.

Jesus went on vacations to renew, to review, to relate, and to…

4. Resist

Several times in the Gospels—Matthew 12, 14, 15—Jesus withdrew because of enemy activity. Jesus often faced spiritual opposition to his ministry. Sometimes, he confronted that opposition head-on, such as when he cleared the Temple or faced off with the Pharisees.

But other times, he simply withdrew. He pulled away and went somewhere else. It’s as though he were saying “Satan, I’m just not getting into it with you this time.”

There are two things that the enemy can use against us spiritually: idleness and busy-ness.

If you are overly idle, you are Satan’s target. King David is a good illustration of what can happen when you are too idle. There he was lounging around on the roof of his palace when he really should have been out at the head of his army fighting battles. And what happened? He fell into sin with Bathsheba. Idle hands are the devil’s playground.

But if Satan can’t get you to be idle, he’ll get you to be overly busy. Because when you are overly busy, you begin to lose perspective. You begin to develop anger, bitterness, a competitive spirit.

In the Bible, Martha was prone to that problem. There she was, rushing around in the kitchen, thinking that it all depended on her, when what she ought to have been doing was sitting at the feet of Jesus with her sister Mary, just listening and learning and resting in the presence of the Lord.

Sometimes we need to get to work; but sometimes we need to get away. Strategic vacations are a way of maintaining our spiritual balance. They are a way of resisting the devil’s activity, and that is sometimes why Jesus withdrew.

The story is told of a man who was walking in the woods when he came upon another man feverishly working to saw down a tree. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Can’t you see?” the sawman said impatiently, “I’m sawing down this tree.”

“You look exhausted.” the first man replied. “How long have you been at it?”

“I’ve been sawing for over five hours, and I’m beat. This is really hard work.”

The first man paused for a moment and then suggested “I have an idea. Why don’t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen your saw. I’m sure it would go a lot faster.”

“Take a break?” the sawman cried. “Are you crazy? I don’t have time to take a break! I’m too busy sawing down this tree.”

Sadly, that’s the way it is with many of us. We’re so busy sawing away at life that we don’t have time to take a break to sharpen the saw.

Go away. Take a break. Go on vacation—even if it’s only a mini-vacation. Jesus, the Son of God did. And if He needed to—you do too!