Time to UNPLUG

It is time yet again to completely and wholly UNPLUG from the hectic, busy pace of ministry life. As always, I’m never ready. But that is the entire point of Yosemite Summit. We are never ‘ready’ for solitude. We are never ‘ready’ for rest. We are never ‘ready’ to spend quality time with our Creator. Too often we confuse busyness with what God is truly seeking from us. Not that we aren’t busy doing good things! But we get so busy doing these good things that our relationship with God can grow strained or distant. Stopping completely once a year is an opportunity to recalibrate. It is a time for reflection and renewal. It is a time to stop doing and start being. God did not save us to gain a worker. He saved us so that we might enter into a relationship with Him and get to know Him. If we are so busy working that we aren’t getting to know Him, then the working isn’t working. It is actually counter-productive to what God’s true aim is.

So once a year I stop all the activity and simply walk with God for a week, doing nothing else but enjoying Him. And I invite a small group to join me. It changes me and helps me continue that walk when I get back to my God-given work.

Let me urge you to do the same. You need not even travel to a place far away (though it helps greatly!). You can leave your office and go for a walk in a nearby park. You can actually take that day off that your church provides, or honor the Sabbath as God designed.

Most importantly, schedule some time away – put it on your calendar now! And when the time comes, even if you aren’t ‘ready,’ take it anyway. God is always ready and waiting for you. And no worries – the work will always be waiting for you when you return. But you will return a healthier and better person for the time you spent away from it.

If this is resonating with you, take some action as a result of reading this. Open your calendar and schedule something now!

Because Jesus Loves Children,

Pastor Karl Bastian

The Kidologist