I have read how one church leader, whom I will call Jack, had a hobby raising pigeons. On one occasion a church member who was returning from a hunting trip stopped by Jack’s place and found him playing with one of his birds and gently corrected him for wasting his time.

Jack, noticing his friend’s hunting bow, said that the string was loose whereupon the man replied, “Yes, I always loosen the string of my bow when it’s not in use. If it stayed tight, it would lose its resilience and fail me in the hunt.”

“And I am now relaxing the bow of my mind,” said Jack, “so that I may be better able to shoot the arrows of divine truth.”

Work is important. We need to eat and we need to take care of our family, but over-busyness can be an affliction. Without sufficient rest and relaxation we will eventually lose our health and not be able to work efficiently. And without taking time to nurture and be nurtured in loving relationships, life becomes empty and meaningless.

We need to follow the advice of Jesus when he said to his disciples, “Come apart and rest a while.” Or as somebody else put it, “Come apart and rest a while before you come apart.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me not to be controlled by the pressures of life or the ‘tyranny of the urgent,’ but to maintain a balance between work, recreation, relationships, and spiritual disciplines. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. Jesus, in Mark 6:31.