Genesis 2:2
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
I want you to travel back in time with me for just a minute, back to the time of tiedyed shirts, bellbottom jeans, and disco clubs. Think back to the decade of muscle cars and Star Wars; Evel Knievel's stunts, and Elvis's final tour. I'm talking about the 1970s.
The 1970s was also the decade that brought us the leisure suit — one of the world's worstever fashion faux pas. The leisure suit — that outfit forever immortalized by John Travolta as he discoed his way across the dance floor to the pulsating rhythm of the Bee Gees.
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Chances are you know someone who owned a leisure suit. Maybe it was even you. Okay. I'll admit it. Yes, I had my very own leisure suit. It was a lime green one, in fact. And when I put it on, flipped up the elephantearsized collar, sported the gold chains with the unbuttoned shirt, and strutted down the street in my platform shoes, I actually felt like John Travolta's character, Tony Manero.
Looking back, I can see that I was really more like the poster-child of uncool. Let's face it. Leisure suits weren't as great as we thought they were in the seventies. I can't think of one person who looks back at that period and honestly says, "Man, I wish I could look like that again!"
But I have some fashion news that may come as a shock to you. Leisure suits are still in style. In fact, they were in style long before Saturday Night Fever or the funky beats of the Bee Gees hit the scene. And they'll be in style long after those things make a comeback (after all, everything comes back in fashion eventually). In fact, leisure suits have been around for the last five, six, even seven thousand years.
Don't rush out to the nearest thrift store, because I'm not talking about the kind of leisure suit that went out of style with the Farrah Fawcett hairdo. I'm talking about a leisure suit designed specifically for you by God to help you get the most out of this one and only life.
God tells us over and over — from the first book of the Bible all the way through the end — that we need to wear and model leisure. He tells us that leisure suits us better than any tailormade, threepiece, silk suit money can buy.
But before we really get into this, let me ask you a question. Is leisure a foreign concept to you? Have you fallen into the trap of overworking or overscheduling your life to the point of exhaustion? Are you just treading water, desperately wondering if you'll ever make it back to shore? Do you even feel guilty when you relax?
Most of us do. I know I feel guilty when I take some time off, because I spend that "relaxation time" knowing that there are plenty of other things that I could be doing to pass the time — chores, work, errands, etc.