Seasons of Hard Work and Seasons of Rest

Marcus here. Two weeks ago, Timothy Dalrymple of Patheos interviewed me about faith and work. It was strange being treated like an expert. I don't think I am, but it has been great fun to work closely with Howard Butt and meet some of the experts in this field like David Miller, D. Michael Lindsay, Bill Peel, Parker Palmer, Bonnie Wurzbacher, and others. I'm headed off on vacation, so I thought this excerpt from the beginning of the interview was particularly apt:

Balance is a great metaphor if you are talking about limited resources. When I talk about balancing work and family, I'm really talking about the issue of time: how do I deal with the fact that both my work and my family expect time of me? There can be times when I need to do 80-hour weeks. If I were a farmer, for instance, and it were harvest season, then I would work a very long day. Yet the Hebrews were still called to take Sabbaths even in the time of harvest. So we are always called to take times of rest, but there can be seasons of hard work, as long as we go on into seasons where we work less. The trend in contemporary society is to work until we burn out. I don't think that's healthy for us as a society and it's certainly not healthy for us as individuals. So I advise that we try to schedule some relaxation at the end of a difficult season, a vacation or at least a period in which we have fewer obligations at work.

It has definitely been an intense season at work lately. It's a good kind of busy, but still very very busy. Which is why I'm not even taking my computer with me next week when my family and I head out to Family Camp. I wish all of you could be there with me--but only if you promised not to talk about work. In the meantime, head over to Patheos to read the full interview about faith and work.