LEARNING TO PUT THE PACK DOWN

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), 'Landscape with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt', 1647. Image, National Gallery of Ireland

For most of my adult life, I struggled with taking vacation. And by vacation, I don't even mean an extended trip. I mean taking time away at all.

Over the last decade, God has been teaching me something I resisted for years. Rest is not a luxury. It is a necessity. Even when my body was away, my mind rarely was. There was always another email to answer, another decision to make, another problem waiting for me when I got home. I convinced myself that staying engaged was simply part of being responsible.

Looking back, I realize it was something deeper. Like many men, I quietly believed the lie, "If I don't, it won't." If I didn't answer the email, make the call, solve the problem, or carry the responsibility, it simply wouldn't get done. At least not the way it should. Over the past few years, God has been gently changing that in me.

I recently spent two weeks away that reminded me how much I still have to learn about rest. The first week was quiet. Slow hikes with my wife. Fly fishing. Reading. Long conversations. The second week looked completely different. Heavy backpacks. Mountain passes. Long miles. Tired legs. Great conversations with a group of brothers in the Tetons. One week restored me through stillness. The other restored me through challenge. Both were rest.

That may sound like a contradiction until we remember that biblical rest is not merely the absence of activity. It is the absence of striving.

Many of us think rest means doing nothing. But I know people who spend an entire weekend on the couch and return to work exhausted. I've also watched men climb thousands of feet in the mountains and come home with renewed hearts. The difference is not activity. It is what their souls are carrying.

Sabbath is the weekly reminder that the world has a Savior, and it isn't you.

For six days Israel worked. On the seventh, they stopped. Not because all the work was finished. Because God was enough. That is much harder than it sounds.

I've come to believe that most workaholics are not addicted to work. We are addicted to being needed. Somewhere along the way, responsibility quietly became control, and control began masquerading as faithfulness. We measure our value by what we produce. Productivity becomes identity. Without realizing it, we begin carrying burdens God never asked us to carry.

One lesson from backpacking has stayed with me through the years.

After hiking for miles under a heavy pack, there is an unmistakable feeling when you finally loosen the straps, shrug your shoulders, and let the weight fall to the ground. Only then do you realize how heavy the pack had become. I wonder how many of us have carried responsibility for so long that we've forgotten what our souls feel like without the weight.

Jesus never invited weary people to work harder. He invited them to come to Him.

Rest is not the reward for finishing your work. Rest is the reminder that God never asked you to carry the world.

This week, find a way to put the pack down for a little while.

Turn off the phone. Take a walk. Read a good book.

Spend unhurried time with someone you love.

Sit beside a campfire. Worship without looking at the clock.

Then practice one simple act of trust.

Leave something unfinished.

Then trust God with it. The world has a Savior. It isn't me. And it isn't you.