I remember as a kid going on what I thought were long trips to see my grandparents in country Victoria.
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With three brothers we would stop occasionally to have something to drink or eat.
After a time, we knew where we were going to stop and some of these areas had signs up with “Rest Area Ahead”.
Recently due to some health issues I have had to travel to Melbourne from Echuca quite a bit and something I have noticed is there seemed to be less of these signed rest areas.
While cars can now travel 600-700 kms before needing to be refuelled I suppose the temptation is to get from point A to point B as quick as possible, doing it all in one hit.
The fact that we can see empty and closed servos along the road point to this.
To me this is indicative of the world we live in as today we find it hard to rest, to really rest.
One of my daughters recently asked me what music do you listen to on your long road trips and I said quite often we don’t.
Major Greg Turnbull, Salvation Army
She was amazed as this was outside her world of thinking.
She has the car stereo on all the time, even going down to the shop to buy something.
We live in a busy world that I fear has lost the art of rest.
We fill in our time with changing the TV channels, scrolling on Facebook and listening to music in the background.
It is like we need to be stimulated all the time.
We need to recapture the value of rest and God’s word has something very profound to say about this.
In several places God commands a “sabbath” rest.
A time where everyone had to stop working, even animals and even the land was allowed to refresh.
In terms of people and animals it was one day a week to stop normal work and refresh and renew, to recharge the batteries so to speak.
In terms of the land every seventh year a field was to be rested and not sown.
God created us and knew the temptation is to work always, to fill our life with so many things and forget to set time aside to rest.
Let’s take advantage of those “Rest Areas Ahead”, plan to set time aside from our usual activates to renew and recharge.
There is also a great promise in the Bible from Jesus who offers us real rest, not just physical but also spiritual, if we follow him.
This is a promise I took up nearly 40 years ago and he has never let me down and I recommend this type of rest to you.
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