Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 40 my name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This months series is about living life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible Journaling Ministries titled Live Life. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day Bible journaling course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com today we’re reminding ourselves about the importance of rest. In our verse is Hebrews 4:9 and I’ll read that end of the world English Bible. It says, there remains, therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Look up is the most frequent phase phrase I hear from the Holy Spirit. It’s his way of telling me to pay attention and put the pen down. I am guilty of not prioritizing rest and stillness, and I have to write no workday in my planner on Sunday.
Rest is something the Holy Spirit is working on with me. It is something that I have to, as odd as it sounds, prioritize. I have to remember that it’s time to shut the computer off and should visit my kids, to visit my husband and, to maybe make dinner and take a break. Rest appears in the Bible at least 144 versus depending on the translation that you use, and it’s often referred to as Sabbath, which means to rest from labor. The first account of rest is in Genesis 2: 2, and again, I’ll read that out of the world English Bible. It says on the seventh day, God finished his work, which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had done.
When God finished creating the heavens and the earth, he rested. Rest is also included in the 10 Commandments in Exodus Chapter 20 verses eight through 11, and again, I’ll read this out of the world English Bible, and it says, remembers the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. You shall labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to Yahweh. Your God. You shall not do any work in it. You nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates for in six days, yellow made heaven and earth the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, Yali blessed the Sabbath Day and made it holy. Rest is included multiple times in the new testament. Rest is more important than I make it out to be.
Sometimes vacations are too busy. So I need a vacation from my vacation or rest from my rest. I can often, especially when the kids were younger, we would go to places like Disneyland, and we would go, go, go, go, go, like constantly going. And then at the end of the day, you know, we would pack up all of our stuff. Like maybe we went to Disneyland for a day or two days or even Disney world where there are multiple parks. And we would go, go, go, go, go. And then at the end of it all, we would come to our room at the end of the day and crash and fall, right to sleep. And then we’d get up, and we would do it again the next day. And then the next day, I remember when the Harry Potter world opened up at it, I think it was universal studios, I think is where that was. And I think that was the first or second year it opened.
And we were so excited because it was, we had planned to Florida trip to go to Florida and, and check out Disney world. And so we added universal studios to that trip as well. And again, we must have stood in line to ride the Harry Potter rides so many times, like back and forth, continuing back and forth and just had a blast. But at the end of the day, we were so exhausted and then at the end of whatever, I think it was five, six days that we were there, and we got on a plane, headed back to Arizona and came home and were exhausted. And then we got up and went to work the next day, and the kids got up and went. I think they were at daycare at that time. I’m not, I can’t remember exactly what we were doing, but we would get up and do whatever the next thing was.
So we would always be on the go, and our vacations were so exhausting, and eventually, I found out that I started to do this thing called time-sharing, which I know a lot of people, I know there are huge influencers that say time sharing is not the way to go. For someone like me. It’s not natural to take a vacation. It’s not natural to go take time off. That has to be forced to do it. A timeshare is an amazing thing. Now, first of all, I would never recommend buying a timeshare from, uh, the original timeshare people who are selling it. I would always recommend buying on the second-hand market, like through eBay. If you’re going to buy a one-bit beach, be sure you want one before you get one because it’s a lot of money that you have to pay.
It’s not expensive. Usually, for the timeshare on the resale market, it’s not that expensive. Like sometimes you can get them for a dollar. I think from the time show that I have now, I spent 1500 on it, and it included like two years worth of vacation points because the person hadn’t used it. And that’s the thing about timeshares. If people don’t use them, then they end up wasting money and spending money annually for things that they’re not going to do. But for me, I don’t like to waste money. So getting into this timeshare that I’m in that I bought on the resale market for maybe 10% of what the original person paid for. It allows me and my family to go on a vacation and stay in a little studio that has a kitchen and a laundry room in it and also has sometimes I can upgrade and get a bedroom or two bedrooms.
Lately, we’ve been doing two bedrooms now that the kids are more significant, so I have to either wait a year to do that or figure it out. I figured it out, but once I discovered us, I bought this timeshare. We started going to the beach because the beach is I think six to eight hours from my house in Arizona, so we go to California, and this timeshare was one that was across the street from the beach. So I think my annual fee on the timeshare is like, it’s less than $800 I think it might be 750 it was a lot cheaper when I first got it, but they raised their prices over time, but still for like 750 blocks. I get a week on the beach and like a one bedroom or studio depending on, depending on the location. So the first time I did that, we as the whole family, we packed up, and I did this thing called like trading into a timeshare.
Like I traded with somebody else in his program called RCI, which I don’t even do anymore, but I did at the time, and I traded in, and we went to show up for our timeshare, and they didn’t have any room for us. So they gave, they overbooked the timeshare. And I was so disappointed because that particular timeshare was right on the beach and we were looking forward to it. But what they did was they comped us two weeks. So they gave us our current week and then they gave me two free weeks at a different location. That was a few miles away. But still it came at, it was such a blessing because it came at a time in her life where we didn’t have any money, and it was hard to, to even save enough money to be able to take that trip. You know, because of we, every quarter I would pay for the timeshare and of our out of our dollars.
And that was our vacation. It was, you know, can I take a family to afford to the beach for less than a thousand dollars. That was kind of like the plan every year. If I could do, that would be great. They ended up comping us two weeks plus Disneyland tickets. So it was amazing. We were able to go and um, go on this beach vacation and the Disneyland tickets, I can’t remember if we went that time or if we, we save them for the next time. I don’t remember all of the details, but we went to the beach. It was the first kind of time we were supposed to go to the beach, and we spent the entire week at the beach. Like literally we sat at the beach and played football on the beach and played Frisbee on the beach and play on the waves and swam. And then we’d go back to our apartment, or I guess the timeshare, whatever you want to call it.
And we would sit down as a family, and maybe we’d play games, or maybe we would go, they would have like little places for kids to play and little activities and things for them to do and we would do that with them and we just, it was so nice to take time off and just rest and enjoy it. It wasn’t, we weren’t going from one place to one place to one place to one place. It was we were at the beach, and we’re just going to enjoy being at the beach, and I would read a book, and it would be nice, and we didn’t have to worry about things. And what was great about the timeshare is that I could do the laundry while was there and I know that’s not resting, but hey, you know, when you’re just kind of hanging out watching TV, I could do the laundry and then not have to come home and do the laundry.
It was just nice. Now again, I don’t recommend timeshares to everybody. It’s not for everybody. It is something that I like to use because it forces me to go on vacation. I can do it economically now. I mean to get even a week in California for under a grant is amazing and do a beach vacation for under $1,000 is amazing. So maybe there are cheaper ways to do it like camping or, or um, our being and all that stuff. That’s great too. I think those are great things to do as well. I, for me at this time in my life, having a PR, being the person that doesn’t like to take vacations, that doesn’t like to do that. This doesn’t naturally take breaks or naturally take vacations. Having the timeshare just really helped me out. So to each his own and I just really, really enjoy it.
For me, my family, it works well for us and what I’m trying to say is that sometimes we can go on vacation and then we’d come back. We need a vacation from your vacation. And so I have to work on it. And I wonder if that’s something that other people or even you have to work on as well. I don’t know. I’m curious to know. So this week, take some time to write a journal about what you do when it’s time to rest. Do you fill it up with activities and do go, go, go, go. Next thing, next thing, next thing, right Or do you sit and maybe read a book or maybe watch your kids or your family or your dog and enjoy your surroundings If you’re here today and you’re tired from the business of life, I encourage you to rest in God.
Ask him to, to fill you with the Holy Spirit and find your rest there. If you know God and you feel that the business of life has got you out of whack, and maybe you’re prioritizing things that don’t matter, call on God and ask him to help you prioritize so that you can find their rest in each and every day. You’re not promised tomorrow, so don’t put this off. Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus, our Lord. So turn to him, confess your sins, and follow his will in your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. Thank you so much for tuning in today, and I’ll see you in the next episode of the promises of God. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to the promises of God podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Bible Journaling Ministries where thousands of women grow in the word creatively. It’s your free 10-day course for other ministries and other episodes resources at ThePromisesofGodPodcast.Com.
Episode 040: Do You Need a Vacation From Your Vacation?
