Is it time for you to take a Sabbatical?

One of my fellow ministers here in Franklin is leaving today for an extended Sabbatical until after Easter.  The first thought that most of us have on hearing something like that is a bit of jealousy.  Wouldn't we all love to walk away from our job for a while and get a break that last longer than the standard two weeks?  The idea of a Sabbatical, which comes from the Hebrew Shabbat (Sabbath), is actually something that God intended to be an integral part of the way that society functions.  We are all familiar with the weekly Sabbath, for Jews Saturday, for Christians Sunday, that reflects the seventh day of rest at the end of the Genesis account of Creation.  That weekly break from labor is certainly something we can see the value of, and something we ignore at the peril of our own health, but God inteneded it to be part of a greater scheme of rest that went far beyond a weekly break.  In the Law given to Moses, the people were commanded to let the land have a rest, and themselves as well, every seventh year.  In other words, they were to work the land for six years, and then take one year off.  We have much the same concept regarding the land today with crop rotations and allow the land to lie fallow from time to time, but the idea of giving ourselves longer breaks from labor has always failed to gain hold when practical considerations overrule such considerations.  Today, only professionals, especially academics and scientists, consider a sabbatical to be a part of their career path, although most of these use that time away for an intense level of work on a special project such as writing a book or doing field research.
Do any of us ever really take time AWAY from our 24/7 connected and wired-in world anymore?  What would it be like to walk away from e-mail, voice-mail, facebook, and who knows what else, for not just a few days, but for a few months?  The problem with never stepping away from the daily grind is that we don't take the time to step back and look at how we do what we do, or why.  The next day's work is coming too fast, no time to think about priorities, no time to evaluate the quality of life we're living, nor to consider the opportunities that pass us by to help others.  What could you accomplish with a sabbatical?  What would happen if you took the time to look at your life from the outside for a change?  God knew what he was doing when he told his people to include rest in their lives.  I wish my fellow minister well in her time off, and I wonder, who will return to us after it ends?  Hopefully, and I mean this in the right way, not the same person who left.