Recreation!

One of the benefits of 'official' retirement is the opportunity to have a long summer holiday!  This year, as I mentioned in last month's post, my wife and I took off to France, in our touring caravan.  What I didn't mention was that it was for a full eight weeks!  My apologies to those who immediately felt a wave of envy wash over them as they read those words - your time will come (although some may have to wait much longer for it!).

The holiday was definitely a time of rest, relaxation, and recreation, greatly enjoyed by both my wife and myself.  I trust that many of you – both warranted officers and staff - did have the opportunity to enjoy some annual leave over these past months, even if it wasn't for as long a period!

That word ‘recreation’ is an interesting one.  Maybe I’m just naturally slow, but I was well on in years before I caught on that it is actually ‘re-creation’.  Now, if I re-create something, I am making it all over again; making it like new; restoring it to its original state and condition.  And that is what real recreation should surely do for each one of us – it should leave us refreshed, restored, and ready to face the winter months that, as I look out of my study window, and at the thermometer, are now upon us.

Actually, the Christian Gospel speaks in those same terms.  There are many, even among those who would not class themselves as ‘Christians’ in even a nominal sense who, if not familiar with, will have a nodding acquaintance with, the words of John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”    Those words come at the end of a conversation that Jesus of Nazareth had with a very religious man named Nicodemus, and in which Jesus tells him that he must be “born again” or, we might say, re-created!  Neither Nicodemus' nationality, nor his religious practise, nor his good works, nor anything else, could do that for him.  It is only by submitting ourselves to Jesus - confessing our sinfulness, and accepting His sacrifice made on our behalf - that we may have this new life within us.

That's the basic message of the Gospel - that all who wish may have such a life; one that is so different it’s like being born all over again.  Now, that, I would suggest, is real re-creation!