I received an email from a reader who told me about the restorative benefits of a recent vacation in which she mostly stayed home and didn’t “do anything newsworthy.”
How often to we fall into the trap of thinking we always have to be doing something newsworthy?
Our culture and social media feeds implore us to take epic vacations that generate inspiring photos and stories of adventure. We expect our kids need to make the honor roll, or make it to State, or get a scholarship (preferably to a university with a famous name). In our careers, we must always be advancing up the ladder at a well-known company in a sexy, up-and-coming industry. We should always be renovating something in our home, or buying a new car, a new puppy, or a new wonder-working appliance. Our date nights need to be somewhere fancy and our weekends need to be filled with a flurry of photogenic activity.
Newsworthy.
Here’s what doesn’t qualify as newsworthy:
Enjoying a fine spring day listening to birds.
Having coffee with a friend.
Tossing the ball around with your kids.
Going on a walk with your spouse.
Playing a card game with your neighbor.
Reading a good book on a rainy day.
Putting in a honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
As banker, politician, and scientist John Lubbock wrote in his book Use of Life, “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
As Christians, we don’t need to preoccupy ourselves with manufacturing adventure and meaningful moments.
We are immersed in them.
In Christ, meaningful moments and abundant blessings are everywhere. What’s newsworthy is that by saying yes to Christ, we are baptized into the greatest adventure of all time, where every mundane thing we do, every suffering we endure, takes on eternal significance.
Even if the ones that don’t go viral or seem all that newsworthy in the world’s eyes.
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