Between Beach and Production ...

Tuesday, July 5, 2011. It's holiday season, and I have just been sitting at the beach for some days. This year, we went to the North Sea, spend two weeks in a holiday cottage in Denmark, in a little holiday village - the Danish call it “Ferieby” - at the west coast.

Letting go …

A holiday can be a time to let things go. For me, that is not the easiest thing to do. Over the past years usually I did not have the possibility to let things go, with various responsibilities, with a little company to care for, with projects and deadlines still continuing to flood my days …

Usually, when you get out of your normal environment, you take all your things with you. Letting things go is not something which is automatic when you change the town or country. You can cover things by other activities, but the main concerns which you take care for every day remain active in your mind, somewhere below the surface.

Sometimes I feel between beach and production all the time. Sitting in the sand of Denmark, the various things which are waiting in my production line are coming to my mind .. and I would say to some extent that is normal. After some days of silence, things are getting better and some kind of holiday starts.

Asking the Lord …

I am often asking the Lord to get to know his mind, to know how HE would approach things and what HE wants. Doing this again and again during normal days, it is natural to continue during holiday, to take the quiet time to learn more about the Lord's way of life.

This holiday, a key point he wants to teach me seems to be how I can continue to live in faith. This has, of course, many levels and facets. One point I am working on currently is how I can balance the trust in his help and provision with my own work for my resources and the different tasks which my professional life has. On the one hand it is good to work and plan and have goals. God uses our own hands to provide for what we need - the New Testament clearly states that we should work and be thorough with our professional activities. But there is the other level: all our work can be completely vain. When his support and blessing is missing, we will not reach what we want to reach and our treasures will be lost soon.

As a Christian community, it is good to speak about such things jointly, in our house groups and with friends and fellow believers. It is good to discuss it in public as well, since all of us have to find their way through these things, what ever particular situation we are in. ... more texts