We have been in a season of vacations. I went to New York. AJ hopped the pond and is seeing some new countries. This has been a great season and I have learned so much. One of the ideas I’m really leaning into is that it is a shadow of our life as a whole.
I am the type of person that needs to have a vision. I need to have something to look forward to. If I don’t have something to give me hope, I will burn out. After I burn out, my work quality goes through the floor. It goes back to our conversation on work and toil. Burn out is the definition of toil.
What brings us out of burnout? Hope!
What gives us hope in the middle of our work day? An upcoming vacation!
Once I have booked (and paid for) the vacation, my disposition switches. I have a little pep in my step and can smile again. The work doesn’t seem to be so bad. It goes from being the bane of my existence to something necessary on my journey to vacation.
How does this compare to our life journey?
Life is work. Life is hard work, really freak’n hard work. If we have no hope, then our day to day labor becomes toil. We will look for anything to give us hope, but it will not be able to bare the weight of our hope. It will break. We will become disappointed, sad, hopeless.
So, what is the “vacation” of life? My thought is Heaven.
Now, I’m going to lay out a working belief. Heaven is not a place, it’s a person. If I’m with Christ Jesus, I don’t care where I am. He is why I work hard. He is what keeps me going. The thought of spending my forever with him puts a little pep in my step. It changes my work from meaningless toil to continual progress.
It is hard for me to think of death as a vacation, but it just makes sense to me.

Working for my life’s vision of writing stories in a beverage shop that I own.
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