I love Easter. As a guy who works in the church and someone who loves following Jesus, Easter has quickly become one of my most favorite holidays. Over the course of the weekend, we had seven worship celebrations with thousands of people in attendance and we celebrated over 40 people who publicly committed or re-affirmed their commitment to Christ. It was amazing, and it was exhausting.
All the people I work with at the church talk about the same thing come the middle service on Sunday morning: the epic Easter nap. It is a legend of sorts, but the gist is that whenever one arrives home after an amazing weekend of worship there is an epic nap to be had. It is one of the most refreshing, most amazing things someone can experience. For me the nap lasts about an hour; for others, the nap turned into an early bedtime. Either way, the Easter nap is the jewel in the crown of an amazing weekend.
As I was trying to explain to Karen why the nap was so important, something struck me as pretty awesome. I get to do something for “work” that I give my entire heart and soul to, and the reason my colleagues and I are so exhausted is because we put everything we had into the weekend. We left nothing on the table, and it was the best representation of what we could do. It was our offering to God. While some may disagree with the approach, or may want to tweak a thing here or there, no one could argue that we didn’t give it enough heart.
I imagine there are a lot of people out there who go to work and leave their hearts at home, because maybe they haven’t found that passionate purpose in their life yet. And that thought makes me a little sad.
My prayer for you this Easter season is that you find a passion (paid or unpaid) that causes you to go home and take an epic nap. A passion so great that it becomes an offering to God, and forces you to be exhausted, because the exhaustion is completely worth it.
Happy Easter!
Happy Easter from my family to yours!