Vacations can lead to worship…

This is the final post in our series on Vacations.  You can catch up on them here, here and here. Today, I want to give us a view of vacation as worship.

I remember the first time our kids saw the ocean.  The look of terror mixed with desire and awe broke across their faces as they saw water as far as they could see.  And there was this desire to run and play in the vastness before them.  Later that night, with each of them, we spent time talking about the greatness of our God who made all that they enjoyed…sand, waves and their ability to enjoy those things.

I want my kids to have a blast on our vacation.  I want my kids to know that Our God made the ocean to display his glory for us to enjoy and to create praise back to Him.  I want them to know that our God is not opposed to our pursuit of pleasure…but the only eternal source of it.

C.S. Lewis writes,

Pleasures are shafts of glory as it strikes our sensibility … I have tried to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I meant something different … Gratitude exclaims, very properly, “How good of God to give me this.” Adoration says, “What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations [I had to look this word up!] are like this!” One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun … If this is Hedonism, it is also a somewhat arduous discipline. But it is worth some labour.

There are going to be shafts of glory on your vacation: a beautiful beach, a starry sky, a killer roller coaster, an amazing meal, a moment that can’t be repeated.  Many of us will naturally be grateful (if we pause long enough).  Lewis is challenging us to go beyond thanking God for this to seeing the grace of God toward us.

God didn’t have to make the world beautiful.  He is not bound to give you unforgettable moments.  No where in the Bible are you promised a good vacation.  If you get that, it’s grace.

Let’s ask Jesus to give us hearts that reverberate in the praise of His glorious grace toward us in everything.  Rather than treating our vacations as a god.  Let’s worship God on our vacations…finding in Him all we could ever need.