For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
It was summer and to be honest it had been a long summer and not necessarily a good one. Stressor on top of stressor had led to me feeling run down and a bit burnt out. It wasn’t just the stressors but also the fact that I had been planning to take it easier that summer. I had planned to lighten my workload and spend more time enjoying the summer weather but, as so often happens, life’s circumstances had gotten in the way and there I was working long hard hours wishing I could just be on a beach somewhere—just for a little bit.
Amidst feeling sorry for myself, a thought came to me—what if we just took off and went to a beach somewhere. Both my husband and I set our own schedule so it really wasn’t impossible… If we could find a cheap Airbnb, we could take a few days off, drive to the beach and just relax. No, I thought to myself, that takes planning. We’d have to make arrangements for the dog, I’d have to let clients know I’d be off, making adjustments to my calendar, my husband adjusting his—certainly we couldn’t just leave. I wanted to go so badly—I finally decided to float the idea passed my husband. What if we left two days later, at the beginning of the weekend?
My husband said no, he had a big meeting on Tuesday that he didn’t want and really couldn’t reschedule. If we left on Saturday he wouldn’t be able to keep that commitment so we couldn’t leave that weekend but we could leave Tuesday night after the meeting! When we came home from work that night, we poured through Airbnb listings trying to find one with a beach-front view, one that was cheap—very cheap—and we found one!
Five days after the crazy idea had entered my head, we were sitting on a beach-—me with a good book in my hand. Our dog was at my parents’ house, my clients had understood, our schedules had been adjusted and I rested and relaxed that week like I hadn’t done for a very long time.
So often we tell ourselves that we can’t, that it just wouldn’t work, that we shouldn’t do it. But we just did it and you know what? Nothing bad happened. None of our clients dropped us, our dog didn’t die, our house didn’t burn down, and we had one of the best little vacations we’ve ever had.
God didn’t create us to live in fear and bondage. Yes, we need to be responsible; we don’t always want to take off work with short notice, but once in a while it really is okay. God has blessed us (I mean this collectively as a first world country) and these blessings are not meant to be burdens. We are meant to use the resources and blessings He has given us to bless others and, yes, to enjoy them.
The next time you are feeling bogged down with the commitments of life, I hope you are able to pause and decipher what things in life are shoulds and what are have-tos, what things are non-negotiables, and what things you can actually flex for your benefit. I want to stop viewing everything as a have-to and a can’t, but as a get-to! I want to stop living with a spirit of fear—how about you?