Hopefully most of us take a week or fortnight off every six months or so and get away to somewhere warm, exotic and relaxing to get closer to our Maker and to recharge the batteries.
So important if we are going to run the race really well and all the way to the finishing line!
However, how often do we just drop tools for 36 hours and DISAPPEAR so we can refresh and enjoy life in a way that can only happen if we are away from work and home.
For myself probably not enough, although I’m getting better at it.
I write having just returned last night with my wife and 19yo son
from a two day one night road trip out and away from ‘the
routine’.
Were we having such a bad time during the previous
week that we just had to escape?.. Definitely not! …Although sometimes I believe it is good to escape temporarily when things have all gone wrong just so we can regain His perspective on reality. Where we can go back with a renewed sense of hope and vigour in order to fix things up and continue on the long haul of the purpose He has given us for our respective lives.
On Friday just gone by we packed the essentials for one night which means not a lot. Warm clothing, tooth brush and of course the portable Nespresso machine. Must, just must, start the following new day with two decent cups of coffee!!
Just after morning peak hour traffic and we are away full of
anticipation and expectation. Already we are in holiday mode as we leave the outskirts of Perth.
By midday we have stopped for lunch at a small town park to
be greeted by the local magpies expecting food. Feeding them
and watching them fly back and forward to the nest somewhere
in the distant trees we wonder to ourselves “… how many years
ago did we last have such a close encounter as this with these
beautiful birds?”
By mid afternoon we are a million miles away in the wide wide
openness of the West Australian wheatbelt and God is smiling
all the way. Already we have had more conversation that really
matters than we would normally have in two weeks. That’s a lot of conversation for a family who
already talks a lot!
By near day’s end we have arrived in Merredin and we drop by to see Ol Mate Wayne Manoni and Business Edge member who heads up the very successful Elders office. He has been busy all afternoon cutting up salami that has been entered for the annual Elders “Golden Sausage Awards”to be held that night as a celebration of the large local Italian community. “James, would you like to be one of the judges tonight? – there are 34 entries.”. “Be delighted Wayne.”
We check into our 70’s style motel, freshen up and head down to the local hall for a fun night where apart from Wayne and his family, we didn’t know a soul. However every one of the couple of hundred people there seemed to know each other like family and we felt most welcome. A rural community having fun together, salami tasting, red wine and we and our ‘batteries were on turbo recharge’ because we were a million miles away from our own world.
Next morning after breakfast in bed (good coffee and gourmet raisin toast) we checked out and hit the road once again passing amazing Spring wildflowers before arriving at the Rock: The most beautiful Wave Rock! A picnic lunch with some Chinese tourists, a quick surf of Wave Rock and we
started the journey home. The great conversation we had on that three hour drive was only possible because we had been away from it all for 24 hours!
My challenge to you? Next weekend or the soonest possible time, book one night away somewhere and take the ones in your life that really matter and just get away!! Don’t get stuck on
‘what will you do?’ when you get there – God will work all that out – He will ‘fill the gaps’ and He will fill them well!
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”
Isaiah 2:3
James Benjamin.. ExecutiveDirector
Business Edge Perth and Western Australia