​Some of my fondest childhood memories are of sitting cross-legged on the floor of my great-grandmother’s living room, soaking in the stories she told of the “olden days”. Grandma would recount such tales as of swimming in the dead waters of the Cass River, back in the 1920s, and of the pet lamb that would follow her to the school house on the corner each morning.

The only thing that could top listening to Grandma tell these stories was looking through the photo albums filled with old pictures, illustrating these stories of days gone by. In my young mind, the past was black and white, and I relished the experience of finding a faded photograph of some unknown relative, then hearing Grandma’s stories about the person. It brought the solemn figure in the photograph to life for me, and gave me a connection with the person long since dead.

The old albums she had ended up in the hands of other members of our family, but her photo collecting inspired me to make albums of my own. Over the years, my interest in history and family lore made me the natural beneficiary of sepia-tone photographs others no longer had need of, and not just from my own family. Two albums, in particular, stand out in my mind, gifts from the families of deceased World War Two veterans, whose snapshots documented their long and eventful lives. I also have a couple of albums filled with old pictures of my hometown, Cass City, Michigan.

When I long for the comforts and familiarity of home, I sometimes pull these albums out and comb through their pages, even though most of the people and events occurred long before I was born. Somehow, it makes me feel connected to a simpler time and place.

A couple of years ago, I came across a word that accurately describes this feeling. Anemoia is defined as “nostalgia for a time you’ve never known”. That’s the feeling exactly.

In a video describing this word, the narrator elucidates this feeling:
​
Looking at old photos, it's hard not to feel a kind of wanderlust—a pang of nostalgia for times you've never experienced. The desire to wade into the blurred-edge sepia haze that hangs in the air between people who leer stoically into this dusty and dangerous future, whose battered shoes are anchors locked fast in the fantasy that none of it risks turning out any other way but the way it happened.
It’s surreal to think that, generations from now, people will look back on the pictures and videos we are taking, and say, “What simple times they were. If only we could go back.”

Indeed, He has made our days as handbreadths (Psalm 39:5).

I’ll never forget that Saturday morning, although I cannot for the life of me remember what precipitated the conversation. My parents were sitting at the dining room table doing bills, as is their custom, when my 14-year-old self entered the scene.
​
Fourteen is a hard age. You are stuck in a transition period, fully aware that you are no longer a kid, yet not a man, either. Your boyhood toys (in my case, G.I. Joes) lost their allure one day, without notice or explanation. Your physical features are awkward. You smell different. Your hair is greasier than it used to be. You’re not sure what place you occupy in your world, or the world at large. And you begin thinking about whether or not you believe everything your parents have taught you, particularly about God.

I think the latter topic must have been what gave rise to the conversation that Saturday morning, because I can still hear my dad’s words-- “You can’t ride on our coattails”. He may have added something like, “If you believe the Word of God or don’t believe it, it has to be your decision, not ours”, but I don’t remember that as clearly as I do those six words: You can’t ride on our coattails.

My parents little suspected, I’m sure, how that brief conversation, and my father’s words, in particular, would challenge me. I little suspected it, either. Those words gave me both great freedom and great responsibility. 

I say great freedom, because it signaled a new form of independence for me. Not the kind of independence you get when you’re finally allowed to ride your bike to town by yourself or when you get to decide how to spend the money you earned mowing a lawn, without parental oversight. Rather, it’s the kind of independence that frees you to think for yourself, to weigh the options before you, and to make a decision.

Dad’s words gave me great responsibility, though, too, in that I was standing at a fork in the road with a decision to make: follow the path I had been taught about for 14 years, the path that had been demonstrably proven to be stable and trustworthy by elder travelers in my life, or choose the path yet unexplored, but jubilantly acclaimed by the youthful sages of the day.

In retrospect, I believe the Lord used a few events and personages in my life to guide my steps, and I’m glad He did. 

The first was an elderly man named Frank Morris. Frank would write to me about once a month, often sending books by Christian greats, like Warren Wiersbe and William MacDonald. And for many years, until dementia took its toll on my friend’s memory, he would call once a week just to check in. 
​
Frank’s influence on my life was significant, because he would relay stories from his long life to illustrate truths that applied to my adolescent life, imparting, in a subtle way, counsel. Sometimes, it’s easier for a teenager to hear truth from someone their grandparents’ age, than it is to hear it from their parents. Frank did just that, and I’m grateful he did.

The second person was a new pastor that came to our church when I was a sophomore. Pastor Hill invested his time and his wealth of biblical knowledge and ministerial experience into me. We met once a week for about a year or so for discipleship. We went through the doctrines and disciplines of the faith, and I was able to ask him questions about life, ministry, and the Bible. To this day, I thank God for Pastor Hill and his investment in my life.

The third was an event. During most of my growing up years, I was a terrible introvert. Few of my classmates had even heard me talk. One Saturday afternoon changed all of that, though.
​
Our church youth group leaders took the youth group to Harvest Fest, a day-long event for teens, filled with games, prizes, music, and preaching. During one of the preachings times, the speaker preached from Numbers 25 and challenged us to dedicate our lives to living and leading for Jesus Christ. I made a decision that day to do whatever the Lord would have me do.

It turns out, that decision meant sharing my faith with my classmates, speaking up on issues that mattered to me, and taking a more active role in my youth group. It also challenged me to be in my Bible on a regular basis. I remember sitting on my bed in the evenings, unable to put my Bible down, as I read about men like King David and the prophet Daniel. 

These events, and others, too, I’m sure, helped me to ensure my walk with the Lord was my own, and that I was not merely riding my parents’ spiritual coattails.

No matter what age a person is, it’s vital that they take personal responsibility for their spiritual growth. As Alexander MacLaren, the great Scottish preacher of old, once said, “We may have as much of God as we will. Christ puts the key of the treasure-chamber into our hand, and bids us take all that we want. If a man is admitted into the bullion vault of a bank, and told to help himself, and comes out with one cent, whose fault is it that he is poor? Whose fault is it that Christian people generally have such scanty portions of the free riches of God?”

As I sit on the patio, iced tea in hand, thankful for the day, my thoughts go to Labor Day. It’s a holiday most of us give little thought to.

Like many Americans, my wife and I plan to get together with friends for what has become an annual barbecue. Families rush to the stores to get last-minute deals on back-to-school merchandise before the dawning of another school year comes in the morning. We eat, we talk, we rest from our labors, and we go on with our lives.

As with most holidays, we need to be reminded of why it is this day has been set apart. Since 1894, Labor Day has been recognized as a federal holiday highlighting the work and achievements of American workers.

A sort of “workingman’s holiday”, Labor Day’s development came about due, in large part, to the rise of labor unions and the fight for fair pay, safe work environments, and shorter work weeks. All of us, regardless of our stance towards unions as they are today, benefit from the Labor Movement in some way. Because of their work, we rest.

As I contemplate these things, I see vivid parallels between our American celebration of Labor Day and the Christian life.

The American life, firmly rooted in the Puritan work ethic, thrives on hard work and its rewards. We are a “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” culture, and to some degree, this is biblical and right (2 Thessalonians 3:10). The Christian life, though, is not supposed to be lived this way; indeed, it cannot be, because our life in Christ begins the moment we stop working.

This concept is diametrically opposed to every other religious system’s teachings. Reaching God--or Nirvana, peace, “your best self”, etc.--involves work on the human’s part, in nearly every religion and “spiritual” belief system.

I was once talking to a Hindu doctor friend. He explained to me that, in his view, God is at the top of a mountain. Every religion is a path that winds upward to God, and, while each path may seem divergent at the base of the mountain, it becomes apparent, as one reaches the top, that each religious path is equally effective at getting to God.

The Bible, however, is not the source of this pluralistic map to the Divine.

To the contrary, the Scriptures record, to borrow my friend’s illustration, that God came down from the mountaintop, took on human flesh, lived as we live, was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin, and showed that there is one path to Himself--faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, alone.  In other words, God did all the work.

In fact, the Apostle Paul writes that the act of justification--being made right with God--is, to our minds, counterintuitive: it can only happen when we rest from our efforts to earn our way to Him. “But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness…” (Romans 4:5).
​
So, this Labor Day, as we enjoy our families and friends, let’s not forget that ultimately, every day is Labor Day for the believer, because justification was made possible by the work Christ accomplished on the cross. All there is left for us to do is trust in His work and rest from ours.

​