Richard's Reflections (August 2026)

This is the time of year when many people go on holiday. Children are off school, and this year the weather has been hot and dry for quite a while now!

A holiday is an opportunity to take a break from what usually happens, the daily routine, if you like. And it is a good thing. We were made to work, but we were also made to rest. 

We have seen this biblical principle as we have been looking at Nehemiah on Sundays. Sabbath principles have been mentioned more than once. God’s people were told to keep one day each week as an opportunity to rest from the things they did on the other days, so that they could worship God together. Jesus himself taught that this principle of rest is for our benefit: 

“The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.”  Mark 2v27 (NLT)

This tells us that we were not given a day of rest to follow rules and regulations, but for our good. Most Christians meet on a Sunday for worship, and whilst we don’t want to get strict about what does and does not happen on that day, it is good to see it as an opportunity to rest, because that benefits us. We were never meant to work 7 days a week. Of course, some need to work or have other responsibilities on Sundays. The important thing is that at some point in the week there is time built in to take a break.

And what happens in the holiday season is a bigger version of that. We break for a longer period of time, which is good for us. And these longer times of rest point towards the time when we will go to be with the Lord for our eternal rest. In the words of the poet Christopher Wordsworth:

New graces ever gaining

From this our day of rest

We reach the rest remaining

To spirits of the blest.       Love in Jesus, Richard