One Surprising Thing a Nearly-Flopped Vacation Taught Me About Easter

There are vacations you want to live all over again, ones you almost decide to cut short, a whole gamut, perhaps, of ones in between, and then ones that solidly check-mark both boxes.

You know you’re this close to calling it quits, packing the still-hungry kids back into the car, and driving home through the night after you wait an hour-and-a-half to be seated at a restaurant mostly full of empty seats. You see the minutes creeping long past bedtime, and you hope the wait will be worth it but eventually you decide to not even order because who knows how long it will be before there is food to feed the faces, and actually, the kids are too tired to even eat anymore.

So you make a pact: stay one more day but ditch the row of flashing entertainment with sky-high promises and head out to where the trees and water talk.

And that one decision is what turns the rest of the vacation right around.

You nix the theme park you had planned for the following day and opt for a 9-mile scenic loop with both majestic views and pull-offs to explore. And everywhere you find water, you surrender to the pull to linger.

There’s something about mountain water bubbling in a brook that reminds you that God is here, wrapping you round in His arms. Time stills, your breath slows, and the One whose beauty can take your breath away swells your heart with joy.

So you pause, crouch to get the camera close, and press the video button. Everything in you wants to capture this sound, this serene moment, so you can replay and remember when the noise is loud and the pace more hurried.

God near us: that’s why He came, breaking through heaven, breaking through all the dirt and pain and damage, breaking through the mistruths and misbeliefs, never missing a step in coming near. We remember this week how no suffering was too great to stop Him from pursuing our hearts, calling us to wholeness and oneness with Him.

Gravel crunches below your shoes. Someone near you drags a shoe, snaking a line with the toe, and you take one last deep breath, drinking it all in: this water, this walk, this way that Yahweh is here right now. He is Jehovah-Shalom, the Lord of Peace, and He is I Am.

Are you ready for Easter?

Sometimes Easter week creeps up and I almost forget that it’s coming. But this year I want to embrace the holy week with my heart already stilled—receptive and ready, open and surrendered. And it takes this water rushing over the rocks to tell me to let go of the things that disrupt peace and embrace the One who carries peace on every breath, every heartbeat.

There is a way that pushes us to strive and earn and do, do, do. And there is a way of settling into the rest of knowing He loves us no matter what we do. It’s a shift from us to Him, from our working to His working in us, and I’m here to tell you that Jesus always invites us to look and talk and think more like Him, and yet it’s an overflow, not a prerequisite. Gaining the mind of Christ earns us nothing in God’s eyes. Rather, it’s our closeness to Him that overflows into us looking, thinking, talking, loving, and living more like Christ.

He’ll pull you in close, if you let Him.

He’ll melt away the angst and worry and disappointment.

He’ll replace the empty and fill you with teeming, wildly overflowing fullness.

Like the water, He never stops moving. Moving towards us. Moving towards you. Moving towards every broken heart and weary head. Moving towards every fracture and fissure in all the whole broken, aching world. Moving towards us like the one wild and holy rush of a waterfall all because He loves–because He is love.

Do you need a pause this week?

Maybe you tend to fit in a whole string of just-one-last-things when your heart and soul really just need five minutes of good, true rest. Maybe you returned from spring break needing a vacation from your vacation. Maybe you’re feeling disconnected, depleted, or empty. Maybe it feels like God is far away and you’re on your own to do this missional living thing in your neighborhood.

And perhaps, like me, you find you resist the pause when you need it the most.

When life feels like a battle, I tend to move faster, not slower. The more desperate I feel, the more likely I am to amplify my efforts as if I can outrun and outwork what’s failing.

Yet, as my family and I discovered over spring break, it’s slowing down that most refreshes. It’s lingering by the water’s edge to drink in the sound of water rushing over rocks. It’s saying yes to the open invitation of an Adirondack chair facing a picturesque mountainscape. It’s stilling to watch a sunset transfigure a sky. It’s feeling the brief warmth of the sun peeking through a mostly cloudy day. It’s being present to the beauty of ordinary moments.

God is all around us, but we’re so often too hurried to notice the way He talks and where He walks.

Ann Voskamp says it best:

Stillness to know God

Attentiveness to hear God

Cuciformity to surrender to God

Revelation to see God

Examine to return to God

Doxology to thank God

Waymaker, p. 161

Do you need a pause?

A pause so you can still and listen and hear how God loves you and is for you?

A pause so you can let go of your own doing and open to the work He wants to do in and through you?

A pause to prepare your heart for the road through Gethsemane to the cross and the exploding glory of a God who can’t be held by death, for whom death is no match when He’s coming for us, coming for us because He loves us?

My prayer for you

My most sincere prayer is that these clips of moving water I videoed while on vacation in Gatlinburg will give you that pause your heart needs.

As you press play, I pray that God would draw you to Himself and ease the tension you’ve been carrying for too long. I pray that as you let go and let Him move in, you will find the deep peace that’s been hard to find. I pray you will feel Him lifting your chin and looking into your eyes as He tells you it’s His love that always starts the ripple that changes both your life and the lives of those around you.

May you know how very loved you are this Easter,

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