Packing God or Leaving Him Behind??

Holidays

We are coming up to that time of year again, when thoughts turn to the Summer Holidays or Vacations to our American friends. In many households there is much excited planning going on. The family is looking at places to go while they are away in a different place – probably a different country. Mother and father are busy getting everything ready – clothes, books, tour guides, maybe even foods – all need to be prepared, and packed ready for the great journey often undertaken for holidays.

Kids are busy reading up all they can about places to go or they are busy piling all their “absolutely essential” toys ready to take with them. Cameras are stocked with batteries; phones are set for “roaming” – the colloquial term used by phone companies for charging exorbitant amounts for making AND receiving calls ‘abroad’.

God is usually put on a bit of a back-burner while the family goes away. Only in quite a small number, I suspect, is God taken away with the family for a holiday.

“Holidays” is a word derived from Holy Days in old English. A Holy Day was, and still is, a day set aside by the church for special events like Christmas and Easter, or Pentecost and Advent. Special days were set aside in memory of specific saints – like St Stephen’s Day, or even national saints days like St George’s Day, St Andrew’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, or St David’s Day here in the UK. It was a Holy Day when very little or no work was done and the people celebrated, usually in or around the church, the memory of a saint or another Christian religious feast day. “Holiday” is a short step from Holy Day as it really was a holiday day even as we understand it today.

So, what happened to God in our Holy Days and in our holidays? The church still has Holy Days but very few people indeed ever bother to celebrate them as they normally fall on a set date which, by virtue of there being five work days to two weekend days, normally fall on a work day. Only the great traditional holidays such as Christmas and Easter are really celebrated nowadays – perhaps Pentecost as well? Even then, there is very little God in them and a vast amount of what the Bible terms “Mammon”.

It is the same with family holidays too. Mammon rules and God is put back into virtually last place – if He is given any place at all. So this year, my wife and I are celebrating our first holiday together. We have been offered a wonderful little place to stay in a stunningly beautiful part of England. It is a place of retreat, rest, and recuperation where we have options and choices to include or exclude God as much or as little as we wish. We choose to take God with us and make Him a central part of our holiday. We choose to take Bibles and CD’s with us so that we are never much more than a few moments away from His wonderful presence. Yes, we want to explore this new part of our country together, but we also want to explore it with God. We want to seek Him in the beauty of His creation and in the quietness of the light summer evenings as well as in the history of the area to which we are going. We want to make every day of this holiday a Holy Day, given to God to guide us where He wants us to go; to see what He wants us to see; and to hear what He wants us to hear.

We are genuinely really looking forward to spending time both alone together and with God. It’s only a few short days, but hey, the benefits will be out of this world. So we are busy preparing frozen foods, cameras, washing clothes, CD’s, even a CD player to take with us. But oh the joyful anticipation of what God has for us is the greatest excitement imaginable.

I wonder how many others have that same anticipation; the same hopes and prayers for their holidays.

How about you ??