Trips vs. Vacations

Julie and I always have worked hard and played hard. We’ve been “over-functioners” for much of our lives, so it’s been hard for us to take breaks away from work, responsibilities, and the daily routine. And when we have taken breaks, usually they have been “trips”.

In our family, trips are lots of fun, but incredibly busy. For many years we would load up our van, hitch up the tent trailer, and travel many miles camping and seeing the sites. (A short trip for us was 1500 miles. 2500 miles was typical and our longest trip was more than 6000 miles). Most days on these trips would be full of planned activities. A visit to a museum, a bike ride, a kayak or rafting trip, taking in a local play….  All of these things were tremendously enjoyable, but virtually all of them were scheduled.

When we came home after a trip, we were emotionally refreshed, because we had enjoyed time away. Yet often we were physically exhausted because we had been so intensely busy!

A few years ago, all of this began to change. We changed our family lexicon to intentionally distinguish between “trips” and “vacations”. We still take trips, because there are things outside of the daily routine that we want to see and do. But now we also, at times, intentionally take vacations.

Vacations can be as short as one day, but they are times when nothing very specific is scheduled. The goal is rest, renewal, and relaxation.

Earlier this month, our son visited us for two weeks with his family. It was a special time, as these visits always are. Most of this time was like a “trip”: lots of planned activities, but not necessarily a lot of rest (for them or for us). So after they left, Julie and I needed a brief “vacation”.

So I took a Sunday away from church (which also freed me from the time demands of sermon preparation) and we went for a drive. We headed up to Alsee Falls, about an hour away. That was our only “plan”.

We enjoyed a leisurely drive along the forested, twisty, two-lane country road. We had a great walk along the riverbank and experienced the beauty of the small, scenic falls.

On the drive home (via a different route) we encountered signs along the road that pointed out interesting sights, so we made a couple of detours to see what we could see.

In our busy & scheduled lives, we seldom take time for side-trips, so these kinds of experiences feel tremendously freeing. They are so easy to do when we don’t enslave ourselves with self-imposed schedules and deadlines!

We were away from home for most of the day and it felt like so much more. The change of scenery, the quiet and beauty of the forest…the roar of the falls…and the complete freedom from any sort of schedule truly made this a day of “vacation”.

And because of this vacation day, we were refreshed, revitalized, and ready for the week ahead.

-       Bruce

The Deadliness of Deadlines

Over the past thirty years of my working life, I took on work that continually was increasing in scope. I was proud of this – and justifiably so – because it meant that I had earned the right to be trusted with ever greater responsibility by my employer. (After all, Jesus said that “if you are faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things” – Matthew 25:21).

Needless to say, there were many positive results of taking on additional duties, such as a greater sense of contribution to the mission of the organization, developing new skills, and even (at times) an increase in salary.

One result, however, was not so positive: I found myself increasingly working under the pressure of deadlines.

Deadlines, of course, are important and can be a valuable tool for the organization…except in those cases where they are arbitrarily imposed – but that’s another subject. Deadlines hold us accountable for accomplishing our tasks and fulfilling our responsibilities in a timely fashion. Because I wanted to be a responsible worker (see 11-03-2009 post on “The Idol of Responsibility”), I learned to excel at “working to deadline” so that tasks were finished on time. This, of course, earned the respect of my employers (which usually meant that even more work was offered to me, since people knew I would get it done.)

But now that I have stepped back from work for a season, I find that there has been a huge, unintended consequence of living as a deadline-driven person for nearly three decades: the deadline itself became the motivator. The deadline was the driving force behind finishing a task. Meeting the deadline sometimes was more important than the work itself. I had allowed myself to become so overburdened by the demands of work, that very little of my work was driven by what I wanted to do, what I felt called to do, or what I decided to do in a given day. Instead, the daily agenda was driven by my various deadlines.

How painful to realize that I have spent these years training myself to react, rather than act. To respond to external demands, rather than internal desires & motivations. To let my agenda be almost completely controlled by others, rather than by the promptings of the Spirit and my own decision-making abilities.

So I am re-learning how to manage my daily agenda. I am re-learning how to set priorities for myself. I am re-learning how to act, and react, with a primary focus on using my God-given talents, abilities, and passions.

As I do these things, it feels like I am welcoming back a long-lost friend. And it is a joyful…joyful… reunion.

- Bruce

The Abundant Life….Life-Giving!

I have always believed that God desires us to have a full life…an abundant life (John 10:10). A life filled with all the good things that He offers, such as joy and peace and contentment. But during this last year, I was jolted when I realized that I was teaching this to others, but was no longer experiencing it myself. I felt stressed, tired, depleted (emotionally and even spiritually). I started to wonder, “Where is this abundant life that Jesus offers? How and where did I lose it?”

I’ve been reflecting on this topic for about six months now, and I think God is starting to give me His answer: I lost my sense of God’s abundant life because I stopped including “life-giving activities” in my regular routine.

I became caught up in the “ have to’s” and the “should’s” and the “musts”…and then felt like I never could do enough to keep up. I became too embroiled in tasks that demanded attention, but did not feed my heart and my soul. I became consumed by administrative tasks which steered me away from people and kept me chained to my desk and my computer. All of this pressed me down…and the result was too many days that were “life-robbing” instead of “life-giving.” 

So I missed opportunities to be creative, to soak in beauty, to laugh, to spend time in meaningful ways with others, and even just to rest – truly rest – from my labor. I allowed my heart to be trapped, and along the way... little by little…I lost a sense of the abundant life. It happened slowly, over time, so I did not fully realize how depleted I was. But now, thankfully, I can feel myself changing; I can feel myself grasping for the fun, the excitement, and the awesome mystery that Christ offers as we live life with Him.

So instead of being controlled by the tyranny of the urgent, I’m savoring each moment. I’m receiving each day as a special gift from the Father, and I try to show appreciation for His gift by looking for fresh ways to engage in life-giving activities. Most of all, I’m deeply grateful that God has given me this opportunity to recapture the abundant life.

- Julie

“Love” vs. “Duty”

Jesus said, “The first [commandment] in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second [commandment]: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.” -- Mark 12:29-31, The Message

I've been wrestling lately with this passage in a very personal way.  Because I've been worshipping the idol of responsibility (see my earlier post), I have spent the last 30 years increasingly defining my life by what I do for others.  As a result, I have neglected the care of myself.  I have not paid enough attention to my own physical, relational, emotional, and even spiritual needs.

In a very real sense, then, I have not been “loving” myself.  Nor have I been properly loving God.  Therefore, if I take the words of Jesus seriously, I have not been able to effectively love other people.  The ministry, work, service, pastoral care (whatever we call it) I have engaged in has not truly flowed out of my love for self and my love for Christ.  I’ve been doing it out of a sense of duty and also out of ideology (it’s the “right” thing to do). 

There is nothing wrong with obedience; there is nothing wrong about being motivated by truth.  But Jesus tells me that these things are not enough.  If I serve Him solely out of “duty”, then He only gets second-best from me.  So Jesus asks for more of me.    Why? Because He loves me.  He proved His love by dying for me.  And because He loves me…He wants me to love me.  So I find myself asking an interesting question: “Do I love me…do I value me…as much as Jesus does?”  Based on the evidence of the past 30 years, the painful answer is “no”.

A big part of my journey this fall, then, has been learning to make time for Bruce.  To provide better care for my body and my soul.  To allow the Lord to rekindle my interests and passions.  And to spend time with Jesus for the purpose of relationship…not just to discover rules, principles, and marching orders. 

Like everything else in life, this requires balance.  After all, I don’t want to become a self-indulgent, navel-gazing narcissist.  But at the moment, I’m in no danger of that because I have been living at the opposite end of the spectrum.  Sadly, I have been so selfless that I lost much of myself along the way.

By the grace of God, this is now changing. And it is a great joy...accompanied by tremendous peace in my soul...to start loving myself again by rediscovering who God has made me to be.

- Bruce

The Idol of Responsibility

I have been guilty of worshipping an idol - the "god of responsibility."

Obviously, being responsible is a good thing. It’s important to meet deadlines, to follow through on commitments, to take care of business. But over the course of my adult working life I have – far too often – turned this strength into a weakness. I have allowed myself to become driven by the “musts” to such an extent that my life has been driven by behavior that is almost obsessive-compulsive. Sadly, much of this has been entirely self-inflicted.

When essential work needed to be done, I often would volunteer...even if the task logically belonged to someone else.  When other people would drop the ball, I would pick it up. Over time, colleagues observed this pattern and began to give me responsibilities that should have been assigned to others. Why? Because they knew I would "get it done."

This approach to life – bowing before the god of responsibility – became such a habit that I carried it over to activities outside of work. Even vacations were overly planned…and woe to the family member who caused us to run behind schedule! (And let’s be honest…is it really that important if you show up at a campground 30 or 60 minutes “behind schedule?")

The result of my behavior? Major overload. Non-stop working. Emotional depletion. And even spiritual dryness, because all of this was terribly bad for my soul. I was so busy serving God (I thought) that my relationship with Him was adversely impacted. The harder I worked to fulfill my “godly responsibilities”, the more distant God seemed to me.

So a key goal during this season of sabbatical is to connect more deeply…more intimately…with God. To listen more closely to His voice so that I will draw better boundaries when I return to pastoral ministry. To only take on responsibilities that truly are part of His plan for me. Because I want to stop worshipping the idol of responsibility…and worship only the Savior of my soul.

- Bruce