School will be out soon, and family vacation season is about to begin, and a listener

named Ryan writes in to ask this, Pastor John, I'm wondering if you could discuss a theology

of vacations.

You often talk about now wasting your life or any moment or season in it.

Intellectually I agree, but at times it seems I need to rest.

Where do vacations fit?

Well, you do need a rest, and the Bible provides some pretty significant foundations for rest,

and I think indirectly for vacations.

Let me just mention a few of those foundations that I think give us some guidance.

Number one, God created us in need of daily sleep.

I have always found that quite frustrating.

I hate sleep.

I find sleep boring.

So why did he make me like a helpless baby that must go unconscious one third of my life?

I mean, just think of it.

What is the message in that?

There's got to be a message in that, and Psalm 127 says,

it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest,

eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved,

some translations say, in his sleep, some sleep.

I think the gist in the context is pretty much the same.

According to this text, sleep is a gift from God, and the gift is often spurned by anxious

...