Time marches on. Here one second and gone the next. People scurrying about their lives not taking a moment to slow down. We get irritated when someone takes an extra half second at the green light, but when we look back, there was nothing gained by having that extra half second. We actually lost more time and energy by being irritated with him than we lost by sitting that extra half second.

Why do we get irritated with the guy who takes the extra half second though? Maybe it’s because we don’t take the time to separate ourselves from the scurry and take it easy for a while. When we go on “vacation,” we still plan so much stuff we don’t actually take the time to rest. We don’t fully separate ourselves from the hurry mentality.

The point of a vacation is to separate. A vacation could be anything from a 3-week trip to Utah to a weekend trip to your favorite state park. It could even be just spending the evening in the woods. Studies have shown that 30 minutes a week in nature does wonders to your state of mind. It will also affect your spiritual life as well. Psalm 46:10 says to “Be still and know that I am God.” We can’t effectively grow spiritually if we don’t take the time to be still every once in a while.

So maybe the fact that we get easily irritated is because we just don’t take time to unwind and relax our mind. So, take a vacation. Unplug from everything for a bit. The world is not going to go to crash and burn while you’re gone. Unless you fall asleep like Rip van Winkle. A good rule of thumb for knowing if you’ve effectively unplugged is if by the end you feel ready and excited about getting back in the trenches and knocking out anything that’s been bothering you lately.

Thanksgiving weekend is coming up in a couple weeks. Maybe take this opportunity to unplug for a while.