Summer Vacation?

Well, it is over for another year.  I spent almost a year longing for it and then, in a breath, in the blink of an eye it was gone.  Summer vacation is gone, but it will return around the same time next year.

Matthew and I spent most of our vacation at our family cottage on Lake Nippissing.  I can’t really tell you what we did, because we really didn’t do much of anything.  More specifically, we didn’t do much that would make an impressive list.  Instead we did things that really matter.  Things like amassing a fantastic summer reading list, including the Princess and the Goblin, the Hobbit, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Magician’s Nephew, A Horse and His Boy and Prince Caspian – mostly read in our hammock by the lake.  Other things included Matthew learning to water-ski on one ski and a few days later learning to start on one ski, too.  We jumped off cliffs (into water) and celebrated Matty’s 9th birthday.  Our list of important things was enriched greatly by our latest foray into astronomy.  Have you ever seen how many stars are visible in northern Ontario (Psalm 8:1-9)?  Fishing, Sea Doo-ing, dirt-biking and spending time with family and friends all rounded out our list of important things we did this summer.

I have returned home refreshed, refocused and very much looking forward to worshiping with you all on Sunday.

It was a good vacation.  My life is richer for the time I spent on vacation this year.

Having said that, there remains something a bit anti-climactic.  I feel it every time someone asks, “So, how was your vacation?”  I know it is entirely my issue, but somehow, somewhere deep down inside I feel obliged to use superlatives.  “It was THE greatest, THE most wonderful …”  Honestly, this vacation – wonderful as it was – was not the great panacea for all of my woes.

I still have bills to pay, problems to solve, grief to address. I am still a single dad, working to cover all the bases of groceries, meals, dishes, laundry, child-care – and all of this while pastoring a vibrant church.

But, then again, vacations are not supposed to ‘solve’ everything.  Too often we live our lives looking for the great fix, the magic wand that will eliminate our struggles removing any pain or discomfort.  But that isn’t the way life works, is it?

Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, “A world where everything was easy would be a nursery for babies, not at all a fit place for men.”  Maybe the same is true about a world where we were only on vacation.

And so this is what I have learned with the end of my summer vacation:

1) Life is lived in the living, not in waiting for a magic pill to fix everything.

2) Peace is found in the moment, in finding that God’s grace is sufficient.

3) God is glorified in my life when I rest in His sufficiency in the moment.

Vacation is good.  It is good in that it affords me time to slow down to do the important things, to spend time with people I love, to swim, read, laugh and rest.  It is good, but it is no magic wand.

I am reminded of St. Paul who wrote, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:8-10