For a lot of students in Singapore, holidays aren’t truly holidays.

We live in a culture where the end of the school year is simply a place in time to prepare for the upcoming year.

Parents start their children on enrichment classes to cover the following year’s syllabus, students read the next year’s syllabus in advance…

And I’m not sure it was always like this. When I was a child, my December holidays were spent creating awesome memories like that one time we drove around the region for 2 weeks.
But it seems we’re on a different train now. Constantly in motion, many of us can’t stop to see we need rest.

Certainly, preparing for the year ahead isn’t a bad thing. But whether as parents or students, when it’s done out of a kiasu mentality – at the expense of forgoing rest – and not excellence for God’s glory, that’s when we really need to examine our hearts.

After all, the Bible tells us that sleep (rest) is a gift from God, often spurned by anxious toil (Psalm 127:2). He made sleep as a reminder that we should rest in him.

Rest reminds us that it’s not our work that’s decisive in running the world – only God’s is.

Jesus redefined Sabbath rest for us as a gift of love to meet our needs. It is for us and our good. Rest reminds us that it’s not our work that’s decisive in running the world – only God’s is.

God neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121:3-4). Living with this truth allows us to rest, knowing that God is always in complete control.

In Ecclesiastes, we read that enjoying life is also a gift from God.

Like the food and drink on our tables, life should be humbly and gratefully enjoyed as a gift God has blessed His children with (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25, 3:13).

God is pleased in our pleasure, when we enjoy it knowing only He offers total satisfaction.

After all, however pleasurable the rest and leisure of this world may be, none of them last forever. None of them match up to the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, who came to deliver us from striving.

Happy holidays!