Last night I had two hours free. I could do anything I wanted. My wife was out and my kids were asleep.

My first inclination when I have “free time” is always to read something academic or work on papers. I’m driven to a fault.

But I purposely decided to watch a documentary on the knuckleball with Tim Wakefield and R. A. Dickey. It had nothing to do with my studies or publishing projects.

I didn’t come to this decision easily but I’ve been learning that I need to relax. Yes there are deadlines coming up for paper submissions. But I have to trust God that he is not bound by me to carry on his kingdom work and that if he wants me to do such and such, he will make it happen as I learn to worship him in both the work (where I’ll work hard) and the relaxing (where I’ll relax… well, hard).

The “rest” of watching a movie meant I left the self-imposed burdens of deadlines behind for a night, shed my idolatrous stress, and even learned some things about baseball that will make me a more well-rounded person able to converse with and enjoy more people outside of my little academic bubble.

Rest is good.

But now, back to work.