Vacations
Sunday 20th July
Printed on the cellophane wrapper of our loaves of bread is this slogan, ”Your big vacation year! 1963.”
This promises to be the year of years so far as vacations are concerned. Right now millions of people are making plans to spend billions of dollars all in a short period of only a week or two. Many have been saving for years and will gladly spend all their accumulated savings over a few short days in a frantic search for happiness.
Vacations, or holidays as they are known in Canada, are big business. Hotels, the mountain resorts, the beach cottage owners, the airlines and the railroads all depend heavily upon these free-spending pleasure seekers for a large part of their revenue. It is interesting to note the kinds of vacations that various people choose. Many quiet-appearing couples seem to derive their greatest pleasure by visiting Las Vegas and staying up all night gambling. Some people who live subdued lives travel great distances to do things which they would never dream of doing at home. Perhaps we can learn something about ourselves by observing what we like to do on our vacation. The time and effort that is expended, to say nothing of the money involved, is something wonderful to behold. No sacrifice seems to be too great in order to achieve the vacation of our dreams. Loss of sleep, fatigue, sunburn, aching muscles that haven’t been used before, mosquito bites and blisters, are all the order of the day. Those accustomed to the comforts of life will ride flea-bitten donkeys, sleep on the ground and eat out of a tin can all in the name of fun. Others who live modestly will spend their life savings to sit in an overstuffed chair in a swank hotel and be waited on by a stuffed shirt waiter.
To the true child of God, there is no such thing as a vacation away from God. If we truly love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind then we will not really seek a week or two when we can ignore Him completely. Perhaps our vacations reveal to us our true selves. If we enjoy a week at Bible School around the Word of God with those of like precious faith, that is in our favor. If we prefer to spend our time looking at the man-made shrines of the big cities, let us beware. While spending a week at the beach or in the mountains do we quietly meditate upon the wonders of God’s creation or do we spend the idle hours reading the pulp magazines left there by the former tenants? Do we welcome the free time to pursue a study of God’s word and to catch up on our back reading of the Christadelphian periodicals or would we rather take in all the local shows and watch television hour after hour?
Do we try to arrange our traveling time so we will be present at the memorial table in a distant city on Sunday or do we leave here on Saturday and arrive there on Monday so we miss going to meeting altogether? When traveling near a brother or sister in isolation do we arrange a stop by and give them a word of encouragement or do we convince ourselves that we haven’t time to do that and still take in the Fair?
Perhaps more than we realize it, we are demonstrating to God who our first love really is, by the way we spend our free time. A true hunter or fisherman thinks nothing of getting up in the middle of the night and spending long hours enduring the weather to indulge in his sport. Are we as willing to spend our time, money and energies in serving our Master as the world is in serving theirs?