Help, I Need A Break!!!

Have you ever needed a break? Have you ever needed to escape? You know just get away. Just take some time to forget about life and all its responsibilities. Perhaps, a vacation once a month would be ideal. Not the kind of vacation where you are doing a million things but the kind where you just get to kick back and relax. Ok, I know that unless your bank account is running over and you're self employed, retired, or have a very nice boss, that's not at all practical. And no I'm not offering you an all expense paid vacation somewhere.

The truth of the matter is that we are busy people. We wake every day with agendas that often could never be accomplished in a 24 hour day. As a result, we often go to bed at night with unfinished business. Some of us are often walking around on the borderline of burned-out constantly. And because vacations only come once or twice a year, it is imperative that we find some kind of escape, even if it is for a few moments.

Some head for the movies. Some hit the la-z-boy chair and vegetate in front of the TV. Some run to relationships, while others pop pills, drown themselves in drink, or sit around with a laptop on their lap for hours gaming, surfing, or engaged in some other Internet activity. There's a great deal of other activities that people choose as their "escape" and I must admit I have a few myself.

The truth is that we all need some down time. The problem is, we often err in how we approach this. God created us in such a way that we would need a break. He set up a system in which we could have a day off. He called it a sabbath. Religion took that day and made it into a religious thing, but God himself says it was created for us, not Him. God, the Omnipotent Creator created us and gave us permission to take a day off. What a concept!!! Think about. One day every week to escape. To take the pressures of life and remove them from our shoulders for a day. Go ahead, rotate those shoulders around and roll your neck around a time or two. Now that feels good. When is the last time, you took a day off? A day when you spent the day with the ones you love the most. A day when the agenda was nothing more than to take a break. Trust me if we could learn to do that, we would be more equipped to handle life during the rest of the week.

In addition to taking a day off, what do you think would happen if during the moments of needing to escape during the week, we chose to run to God rather than run to all our other "escape" mechanisms. I'm not saying that all those things we do to escape are negatives, just that often times they are a substitute for the only thing that can really work. Scripture tells us... that those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength...to be still and know that I am God...come to me all you who labor and are heaven laden and I will give you rest. All throughout God's Word we are instructed that in Him is where we find true rest. Sure, we can escape using lots of other ways, but we were created to find our escape in Him. When we choose to run to Him, not only do we find rest but we find a renewed strength.

Running to Him is not a religious thing. It can look like a few moments of silence and solitude. Or, perhaps a few moments of scripture reading, or prayer. It can be time spent in meditation. No, meditation is not just some wacked-out eastern religious practice, but a scriptural practice that God instructs us to embrace. It's a practice of pondering or thinking about what God has said and what He's saying. I'm convinced that when we learn to practice "escaping" like this, it puts us light-years beyond any of those other escapes.

Next time you feel the need to escape, try running to Him. I think you'll find that He is better equipped to meet your need for rest and strength than any other thing you try.