Mark Rogers

I feel sorry for people who go on vacation to “get away from it all”. I feel sorry for them because I’ve been there, with a job and an attitude that made “getting away from it all” the most desired condition I could imagine. Life, relationships, job so miserable that getting away from it all was tantamount to going temporarily to heaven. I’m thankful that it’s not where I am in life now.

Oh, I’m on vacation as I write this, and I started to reflect on a good man who recently said to me that when he goes off into the woods or on the river it was to “get away from work and church”. I could understand work, but getiting away from church confounded me. Now I work for a church and consequently, when I go on vacation, essentially, I am getting away from church, but that’s never my intent. When I go on vacation, I don’t think of it in terms of “getting away” from what God has blessed me with as my vocation, which is engaging in the plan of God for my life. I never have the desire to get away from my office, get away from the incredible people I work with, get away from the unpaid servants who work with me in ministry, or get away from my Christian friends from those groups.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m enjoying being on vacation. But not because I want to “get away” from anything. Because I enjoy getting to do some things I really like to do at a level I can’t do in my normal work week. But even then, I try to include some great friends in what I’m doing in my time off.

So, I work for the church that has been my church all my Christian life. Must be easy to write all this. But I’ve met some great people in my life that worked in retail businesses, factories, for distributors, service businesses, that had an attitude that no matter what went on around them, they exhibited an attitude that said “I’m a Christian, and no matter what “I’m going to be positive about my station in life”. They don’t gripe about their job. They are thankful for it. They serve God in spite of the hours or physical stress involved. And while they’ll take their vacation just like everyone else, they never exhibit and attitude that says, “I need to get away from it all”. Their whole life says, “God has given me all that I have and I’m thankful for it.”

The same can be said for self employed people. I went trout fishing this week. The guy that drove us to our destination is self employed. He was up all night sick. Throwing up. He got better as the night went on, and at 3:00 a.m. got in his truck, with trailer attached, motorcycle on board as a “fetch” vehicle, and showed up on the parking lot of my church at 3:30 a.m. with his vehicles and kayak ready to go. He drove us about 180 miles both ways, used his stuff to be sure we could make it to our “drop off” and “put in” destinations, showed no signs of fatigue, drove the entire trip both ways, and created as much “fun” with his attitude and stories as anyone you could imagine. If he reads this, he’ll know who he is. If anybody who knows him reads this, they’ll know who he is. Why? Because he’s somebody who embraces life at all levels with a thankful heart to God who he acknowledges is responsible for everything he has.

So, a need to “get away from it all” probably means that a person is involved in some things that he or she shouldn’t be involved in, or it means that he or she has an attitude that is not consistent with the clear commands of scripture that tell us to keep in mind that God has provided all that we have. Our spouses, our children, our jobs, our finances, our stuff, our abilities, our opportunities.

This is a blog, which is basically a glorified means of “venting” or “expressing ourselves”, so I’m expressing myself by saying I’m glad to be on vacation to do some stuff I like to do. But I’m thankful that on a day to day and week to week basis, I never feel the need to “get away from it all”.

Blessings to all ~ Mark Rogers

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