Summertime rest is good for the soul

“It’s summertime and the living is easy.

“Fish are jumping and the cotton is high.

“Your daddy’s rich and your mama’s good-looking ... ”

George Gershwin had it right at one point and that is summertime seems to be a time when many folks go into a vacation mentality, believing it is their constitutional privilege to take it easy. And well it should be. The hard-working people in the United States need a break at least once a year.

The surveys indicate Americans work harder and longer than the Europeans and many other parts of the world. For full-time employment in the United States a 40 hour work week is the beginning point. To become successful, it is usually indicated that you must work 50 to 60 hours of the week, leaving little time for family and personal needs. To get time off for a doctor’s appointment is becoming more of a difficulty. Therefore, family physicians are being forced to offer appointment times on Saturday and after hours during the week.

So, people need a break. They need time for re-creation. They need a change of scenery in order to re-focus and reclaim proper perspectives about life. Adequate and healthy perspective is damaged by having only one routine, going to the same place week after week, and never enjoying a change of pace.

God understood this from the beginning when he decided to create us. God rested after six days of creation and he expects us to do the same. When he gave the Ten Commandments, he made it a requirement of life that we rest every seven days. He insisted that we change our routine once every week. God even asked that we give our animals a rest once a week.

The thrust of the fourth commandment is that humankind needs rest and refreshment. God did not make our mainframe to be busy 24/7. He wanted it shutdown for a whole 24 hours. But that’s almost impossible with our increasing inter-connectedness. Employees receive phone calls and e-mails after getting home from a long day at the office. People are using their day off to catch up on work. Its work, work, work! And that makes for a sad and sick employee.

Consequently, vacations are more and more important to a healthy psyche. And that is if we truly vacate all the stuff and minutiae that claim our attention the other 50 or 51 weeks. We need some time in the summer time when the living is indeed easy. A time when we check on the fish jumping and become amazed at how high the cotton is growing.

Now, your daddy may not be rich and your mama may not be good looking, but you better give yourself a rest.