Work and Rest ...

Tuesday, July 9, 2013. It is sometimes important to take a break. In particular, when you have a responsible job with full days, then breaks are even more important than usual. Why are breaks important?

Breaks are needed …

The human body is not made to work continuously. You need breaks every day. You need sleep in the night. When people do not get enough sleep, they start to become ill. They cannot continue, cannot work any more! Sleep is enforced unto us, no one can live without sleep, without the daily break. What ever your understanding of how the world came into being, humans need breaks, six to eight hours every day, to live!

But we also need holidays. In the laws of many countries, holidays are a human right. In Germany, it is a must for civil servants. Without holiday, that is the background, we cannot do our work well. We need at least once a year a break for two or three weeks. If we are honest, we realize: two breaks per year are needed to keep us going. One break in the summer, another around Christmas - or one in the spring and another later in the year … these are the basis of continuous creativity and strength.

Breaks bring you into some distance to what we do. Breaks help us to balance our focus and our activities. Breaks are crucial to gain the right view onto the challenges and problems which we might face day by day. Often, we cannot solve problems when we are too close to them. We need to step back and look at them from a remoter position. Holidays and breaks can be an important tool to make progress with what ever we are up to!

Work and Rest …

**

Breaks and distance are crucial tools as well, when it comes to our faith. In the new testament we first hear about John, the baptist. He lived in the wilderness, in a remote place. By this, he had the distance which others tried to achieve. He was living there, outside of the normal activities and targets, and people came to him to gain insight and find solutions to their problems.

The balance between work and leisure, between work and rest, is of deep importance for our life. God has created a world for us, to live and to work. He himself has designed creation in a way, that we might be challenged and creative. It is not only a playground, but a serious task to us, in the middle of dangers as well as pleasures which our world offers to us.

But God also wants us to find rest, again and again. He wants us to step out of our work, and celebrate him. He wants us to learn that HE is the Lord above everything - even if he puts work and tasks and challenges into our life which we need to carry out and resolve. We cannot live without work - and we cannot live without rest. Both is desperately needed for us, day by day and year by year. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts