This post is a “Part Two” of sorts to my most recent blog post, “Thoughts on Rest.” I think both individual posts are more valuable if you read the other, but don’t close out if you don’t have time to read “Thoughts on Rest.” I hope this post will be valuable by itself as well.
On the way back from our “unplugged” Idaho vacation, I had lots of time to think. We rode in the car for five hours from the cabin back to the airport, with little to no reliable cell service throughout the first few hours of the drive.
As a kid born in the 90s, my usual “pass the time in the car” activities were of no use. I forgot to bring a book of MadLibs, I didn’t have my Tomatgotchi handy, and the few license plates I saw all said “Idaho.”
So I stared out the window.
We were passing through towns with populations of 200, 300, and 400 people, so there weren’t many billboards or signs to stare out. But of the few signs we did see, a couple of them caught my eye.
Along the Salmon River were National Park-esque signs that said “_____ Recreation Site” with parking that led to a little beach along the river.
As we passed the third or fourth “recreation site,” I thought about the word “recreation.” As a pastor and theologian (and one who especially likes the first couple chapters of Genesis), I couldn’t help but wonder the etymology of the word “recreation.” (As I type that sentence, I realize how nerdy it sounds. I own my theological nerdiness.)
Was recreation “re-creation”? What connection do recreation and creation have to one another?
As I re-entered the society of the Internet, I did a quick Google search. As the inerrant Wikipedia states: “The term recreation appears to have been used in English first in the late 14th century, first in the sense of “refreshment or curing of a sick person”, and derived turn from Latin (re: “again”, creare: “to create, bring forth, beget”).” [As a kid born in the 90s, I know better than to trust Wikipedia. Other sources I found validate this.]
Recreation. “Refreshment or curing.” That’s what I had just experienced while on vacation.
Now let me just pause here and express a challenge I have when writing this blog post. And maybe also step on a soap box for a brief moment…
The challenge I face is sharing how my rest was a source of recreation without seeming like I’m asking for pity. I think it’s helpful that you should know: I’m not looking for pity.
The reason this is a challenge is: I’m a pastor. And I don’t know if you’ve see the same viral social media posts I see, but there are Facebook posts that and say something to the effect of “Pray for your pastor. He [it always says “he”] deals with so much. He’s too busy caring for your family to care for his family [it always assumes “he” has a family]. He has no friends. Has no hobbies. He’s so lonely. So pray for him.” (The irony is that when I tend to look at who the original post is by, it’s almost always a pastor.)
Not only does this assume that pastors don’t have boundaries, but it ignores all of the amazing things about being a pastor.
So when I share some of the “refreshment and curing” I experienced on my vacation, I hope your first reaction isn’t, “I need to pray for my pastor because being a pastor is pure torture.” I love and value your prayers. And yes, pastoring is hard, like many other professions. And we can’t hide the fact many pastors and pastor families have experienced great harm because of pastoring. But pastoring is also immensely good.
I just hope you know that I share this for encouragement for you to enjoy some recreation and not as a way of asking for pity.
Over the years, I’ve done a lot of learning and self-reflection on rest.
By nature, I’m a workaholic. I do, do, do until I can’t anymore. And then once I’ve recovered (typically from sickness or incapacitating stress), I hit the hamster wheel again, back to the grind of work.
For me, the rest and stopping of Sabbath has been immensely healing for me. And I use that word “healing” intentionally.
I don’t know about you, but when I’m sick and have a fever, my least favorite part of the sickness is right before the fever breaks. I’m hot and cold all at the same time. I’m irritable and can’t get comfortable. It’s as if things have to get worse before they can get better.
That’s exactly how rest can be for me.
Christian author Jefferson Bethke has taught me a lot about Sabbath. He’s shared that the first several hours of Sabbath are really difficult for him; he feels agitated and like he can’t be at peace. But after a few hours of rest, his body finally relaxes and he’s able to enjoy the rest of Sabbath.
This is what happened to me while on vacation. For the first fews days of my rest-filled vacation, the rest I was supposed to be experiencing didn’t feel restful. In fact, it felt kind of painful, almost the way people describe a detox from an addictive substance.
In many ways, the first couple days away from the busyness of cell phones and work and the news cycle felt worse than the last couple days I was connected to all of those things.
Now granted, as I mentioned in my first post, there were some stressful events that happened on our way out to Idaho, including a couple of lost items. So that certainly had something to do with it.
But in my journey of learning about rest, I also know that not all of the inability to rest those first few days was because of that stress.
The first thing I noticed that felt “worse” was that I began to notice a bunch of canker sores in my mouth (sorry if that’s TMI…). Then I noticed poor sleep. And then tightness in my shoulders and neck.
The last few years, I’ve been trying to listen to my body more, so I was actually able to recognize pretty quickly that these weren’t because of the rest I was enjoying. After several months of pushing my body just a little bit too hard for a little bit too long, my body finally sensed a stretch of relaxation and needed to work some things out. My mind also finally began enjoying a stretch of relaxation and started noticing things that had been happening in my body that I had ignored for far too long.
And then, throughout the rest of my vacation, I realized that my body was slowly starting to heal itself. My body was working through the stress-related sores in my mouth. I was starting to sleep better. Tightness in my shoulders and neck finally went away. Even an eye twitch (a tell-tale sign of mine that I’m overly stressed) that I had for five weeks finally went away.
When I noticed all of these things on my vacation, I kept thanking God for the rest He was giving me. And as we drove away from the cabin and I kept seeing “Recreation” signs pop up along the road, I realized: that’s what this vacation was. Recreation. “Refreshment and curing.”
I share all this to ask you: Do you need refreshment or curing? Do you even know if you need refreshment or curing?
Many of the things I received healing for weren’t even things I was aware I needed healing from. I didn’t realize my poor sleep. I didn’t realize that my body needed to work some of its stress out.
I worry that many of us are living life at an unreasonable pace. Full-time work, full-time parenting, sports and extracurriculars, church activities, social events, volunteering. The list goes on and on. Have you stopped long enough to know that you need refreshment or curing?
When you think about time and how we mark it, some of the ways we do so are man-made: minutes, hours, months, etc. Some of the ways we mark time are God-made: days, weeks, seasons, and years.
We live our lives in these regular rhythms of days, weeks, seasons, and years. I think we need rest and recreation in each one of these rhythms.
Days: How are you sleeping? Do you need to block out more time for sleep?
Weeks: Are you Sabbathing? Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word “shavat,” meaning “cease.” Each week, are you “ceasing” from the busyness of your life? Are you “ceasing” your connection to you phone, TV, and laptop?
Seasons: Each season, are you taking some time to unplug and get away (either physically or technologically)?
Years: Each year, are you taking a block of time where you can just recreate—heal from the busyness—and enjoy God’s goodness?
Take it from a guy who doesn’t always do these well: we need it. More than we know. Give it a try. It won’t always be blissful. But it will be good.
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Hunter Bethea 
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