Slow Me Down, Lord!

            

Slow me down, Lord!

“Summer time and the livin’ is easy!”  Yep, it’s vacation time!  I just returned from a week in Seattle with my youngest son, there for a break and for his graduation from a community college.  We spent some time at a vacation home owned by my brother on San Juan Island.  We ate, read, talked, napped, browsed thrift and antique stores, toured a chocolate factory, took pictures of foxes and deer who ventured near enough on the the North Beach, and just relaxed.

            And now it’s time to go back to the grind.  The rest of the summer promises to be hectic.  I’ll be teaching two classes in a “minimester” of five weeks, while preparing to change over to the semester system in August.

            Our lives are frantic, but all of us need a rest, a break from our frenetic schedules.  And our breaks are Biblical.  God Himself during creation (Genesis 2) established a day of rest, a Sabbath, and blessed it because He rested from His work.  Also, when the disciples returned from a “short-term missions trip,” Jesus said to them (Mark 6:30-31, NAS), “‘Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.’ (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.)”  Jesus and His disciples needed a “vacation” and so do we.

            I don’t expect another “vacation” this summer, but I do plan to schedule time to rest awhile.  I don’t plan to schedule all my evenings and weekends with activity.  I plan to make sure that Iivin’ is easy, but I want it for the right reasons.

            An unknown poet put it this way:

Slow me down, Lord, I’m goin’ too fast.
I can’t see my brother when he’s walkin’ past.
I miss a lot of good things day by day;

Don’t know a blessing when it comes my way.

            So I am asking, Lord, please slow me down!

                                                                                    ~Faith Lamb