Sensible Management

In affluent democracies Christians are often indistinguishable in lifestyle from non-Christians--not least when it comes to time management and personal organization. I have seen many articles written by Christians on these topics; virtually none even mention James 4:13-16 ("Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil"). Nor do any of the other "God alone ultimately determines how things will work out" scriptures get more than passing mention.

Not that I think a "truly Christian" approach is all that simple. Since God rarely sees fit to hand us minute-by-minute schedules for use of our time, we often feel forced into the secular "master your own hours" approach, lest doing "nothing" for extended periods costs us our chances of earning a living. Few are so closely tied to God as to always be sure what He wants from us--and we don't really wish to join those who won't get dressed in the morning without first praying "what color underwear should I put on today?"

Still, living most of our lives as if God didn't exist is no answer. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Our problem here, I think, is that we take it to mean, "If you just 'pray right,' you need never be uncertain about where to place your foot for the next step, and you'll never hit a dead end." More likely it means, "If you make consistent effort to stay humble before God and accept that He has full control over what happens, be sure He will keep you from wandering far outside His plan for your life." Which is not quite the same as total freedom from confusing circumstances, or even the occasional serious misstep. Even hikers who know exactly where they are can sprain ankles.

It takes humility to admit this, but humility is key to effective Christian living. Once you start assuming you know best, you've taken a dangerous step toward assuming you don't need God.

You may be the heart of frugality
And save nickels and dimes every day;
But if you never give anything to God,
Then you might as well throw it away.

You may be a star in your use of time
And put all the best work in your hours;
But if you have no time for the work of God,
All your deeds are as weeds in the flowers.

You may be a planner of highest skill
And may never fall short of a goal;
But if there is no place in your days for God,
You are taking a chance with your soul.

Put aside every doubt that God is Lord
And the Master of all of your time,
That He holds the whole claim to each thing we use;
Nothing really is yours or is mine.

So give to Him the first of all you earn,
And surrender each hour to His will,
And hand Him full control of your destiny--
And with blessings your life He will fill!

If You Have Not Love

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing" (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

"Love" has multiple and often casual meanings in English: we know that loving chocolate and loving our children hardly comprise identical feelings, yet we use the same word for both. When St. Paul wrote the verses above, however, Greek was the world language; and the Greeks had different words for "love" of things and pleasures, for sexual love, for family love, for friendship love--and for the sacrificial, selfless love called agape, the ideal Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13 and the hardest of ideals to attain. Without it, moral purity, sacrificial giving, even Christian ministry are all worthless in the eyes of God.

Shocking words, those. Is Paul saying that self-centered motives on the part of a preacher invalidate the salvation of everyone led to Christ by his ministry? Hardly: God can use even outright evil to accomplish much good. The "worthlessness" of loveless work lies in what it fails to accomplish for the worker himself. The Christian who truly loves God treasures quiet time for its own sake, joyful in the privilege of being with the One he loves; the works-oriented Christian sees quiet time as a means of getting marching orders, or, often, support for his own plans. The lover lets the challenges of his work draw him further into dependence on God; the worker trusts in his own strength to accomplish things. Perhaps most telling of all, the lover cares little about worldly success or appreciation, but finds all the reward he could hope for in His Lord's pleasure. The worker sees success and appreciation as indicators of God's pleasure, which is a no-win situation for his own spiritual growth. If he gets the rewards he feels he deserves, he lets pride eclipse his gratitude; if he doesn't get them, he grows bitter against God.

Do you love God the way you love those human beings you are closest to--through constant attention, eagerness to please, and complete faith in His good nature? And are you willing to let Him help you love the rest of humanity in that way?

If you give ten percent to the church each week,
But your heart remains cold and proud,
You may draw applause from the world at large--
But our God rarely goes with the crowd.

If you sing in the choir twenty days a month
With a voice like an angel's tone,
But then look unmoved on another's pain,
All God hears is the hurting one's moan.

If you know to the names of Kedar and Put
Every word that the Scriptures said,
But you close your eyes to the world's great needs,
Then your spiritual worth's all but dead.

It is not through our works, though they be great deeds,
We find favor within God's eyes,
But by means of love, fed by humble hearts,
Through the Spirit Who makes Christians wise.

You Can't Figure God Out

I got back from a two-week vacation three days ago, and already have regressed to frantic-and-frazzled mode. If whoever wrote "make time for God and He will make time for whatever else you need to do" intended it as a promise that your daily schedule will always fall neatly into place if you begin the day with a quiet time--all I can say is, I'm living proof that promise isn't from God. Clutter and interruptions are such a tenacious problem that I wonder if there's a demon specially trained in use of those weapons who's assigned to destroy my effectiveness. Regardless of the root cause, I've yet to see the miraculous relief of pressure others have reported on surrendering their schedules to the Lord's will.

"Life happens" even to the top pros at prayer, planning, and positive thinking; and anyone who doubts that is simply enjoying a long period of what we thoughtlessly call "luck." Then there are those who are going through the exact opposite and have reached the point of giving up hope it will ever end. "Lucky" or "unlucky," we all tend to assume that the way our lives have been for a while is the status quo. Be careful: God loves to shake up "normality" when we least expect it!

One thing God is not is "logical"--a good thing, too, or He might give us the eternal separation from Him that we deserve. But it's tough to appreciate that when all our logic says we deserve better than what we're getting--when we work hard and still can't make ends meet, when we take care of ourselves and still get sick, when we ask God what He would have us do and receive no discernible answer. There comes a point (often many times in one life) where all we can do is effectively throw up our hands, admit God knows best, and cast ourselves on His Word: "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Heb. 13:5b).

God's Word also says, "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!" (Rom. 11:33). How will we respond to these qualities: with annoyance--or adoration?

We can trace out the paths of the planets,
We can look into human genes,
We can study a thousand cultures
And discern what each custom means;
We can travel through deserts and oceans
And can find beyond any doubt
Many hundreds of laws for nature:
But we never will figure God out.

We may judge Him by our human logic,
Say we know what He plans to do,
But our Lord has no end of surprises,
And with Him every day is new.
Good behavior will never oblige Him,
And it does no one good to pout,
Nor to question a thing He is doing:
Logic just cannot figure Him out!

All we know is those things He has told us:
That He ever is kind and wise;
That He watches our days and our actions
And the things never seen by our eyes.
When your whole life seems hopeless, still trust Him;
He still knows what it's all about.
It's not knowledge, but faith, that will guide you
On the path our Lord has figured out!

What Is It That You Fear?

What are you most afraid of? Polls of the "most common fears" have varied results, but invariably public speaking or some other chance to make a fool of oneself ranks high on the list. Many people are terrified of innocuous creatures ranging from cats to cockroaches. Other contenders for the lead-phobia spot include things that can be life-threatening but rarely are, such as heights, flying, and storms.

All these fears have one thing in common: they make little sense. They almost never involve immediate danger; they occupy the mind to a degree all out of proportion to any real threat. (Many more people die in cars than on planes; far more people are afraid of flying than of driving.) And when actual danger does threaten--well, the phrase "paralyzed with fear" is no mere metaphor, and a paralyzed person is hardly in a position to help himself out of trouble.

It's hardly a new problem; the phrase "don't be afraid" occurs some 89 times in the Bible. One verse that perhaps gets less attention than it deserves is Mt. 10:28: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Not that we are to treat fear of God as we generally treat fear of earthly things: going through life never quite free of the dread that God will cast us into hell. (As some legalists in fact do.) To fear God properly is to fear disappointing Him, to fear being out of His will, to fear trying to take control of life ourselves--which is the true motive behind most earthly fears. (Maybe that's the real reason so many people would rather drive than fly; at least in your car you maintain some control.) Those of us who were blessed with loving and wise parents understand some of this instinctively; we were a little afraid of them because they seemed so powerful and couldn't be bullied or manipulated, and yet we knew that they would never really do anything to hurt us, would in fact protect us from danger.

As more than one person has put it, "Fear God and you need fear nothing else."

You lose yourself in action
To flee some unknown dread;
You pile up earthly treasures
Against the "times ahead";
You fret of wars and rumors
And endless things you hear:
Oh, foolish, trembling mortal,
What is it that you fear?

You look for "anti-aging"
To stem the flow of time;
You lock your doors and bolt them
To hide yourself from crime;
You draw away from strangers
Lest they hold motives drear:
O, god of self-protection,
What is it that you fear?

Your prayers themselves are haunted
By endless trembling doubt;
You beg for what you're craving--
Will God bring it about??--
You plead for certain outcomes
And doubt they will appear:
Then God speaks to you, softly:
"What is it that you fear?

"My perfect love and wisdom
Hold endless wealth for you;
In all life's tests and troubles
My strength will bring you through;
Forget your earthly wishes,
Desires you hold too dear:
Far better things are coming
When it is Me you fear!"

Life Is Confusion

Do a Google search for the phrase "life doesn't make sense," and odds are you'll get some 838,000 results. (I did.) Specifically, life makes little sense when judged by our best reasoning and instincts. It seems that well-laid plans should run smoothly, that people who work hard for dreams should achieve them, that evil should be stopped before it has the chance to do real damage, and that people should keep their health at least for the first thirty-five years of life.

Probably the majority of times, things do happen that way. But when they don't, everyone notices. A woman who followed all the rules of diet and exercise is stricken with terminal cancer at age twenty-nine. A drunk driver collides with an inner-city student who finally achieved the first college scholarship in his family a week earlier--the young man who worked so hard for a better future dies, and the driver whose thoughtlessness caused the tragedy isn't even scratched. Two families, next-door neighbors who to all appearances are equally law-abiding and decent, both pray for protection in a storm--a tornado rips down the street, swerves away from one family's house, and levels the other's.

It's not fair--which is usually what "Life doesn't make sense" means. No one talks about the "senselessness" of a hardworking but poverty-level teacher's suddenly inheriting $2 million willed by a fifth cousin to "my nearest living relative who can be located in six months"--though the odds against it are probably greater than those against the teacher's falling victim to a drive-by shooter. Regardless, the "life doesn't make sense" argument is also a key point of the "Is there a God or isn't there?" question. If there isn't a God, life really is senseless--but then how do you explain the human instinct that says life should make sense? If there is a God, why doesn't He add a little more "sense" to life?

There's a clue in Isaiah 55:8: "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD." In other words, it's not only possible that things will happen that make sense to God but not to us--it's inevitable. Truthfully, the very existence of another common phrase, "for your own good," proves that we do understand "higher ways" sometimes must prevail. Your cat can't understand why he needs a rabies shot; a three-year-old can't really comprehend why eating a whole bottle of flavored aspirin is a bad idea; and a high school student is incapable of fully accepting that he isn't ready to vote, drink beer, or leave town for an unchaperoned weekend.

Our understanding is considerably farther below God's than a cat's is below a human being's. Pets and small children rarely hold it against us for long when we do something for their own good. Let's try to be as wise in accepting God's will for our lives.

Life is confusion, life is hard;
Circumstance has no reason or rhyme;
If you search for details of what makes life tick,
Reason falls on its face every time.

Life is confusion, life is tough;
And no matter how hard you may try,
Things will always occur far beyond human power
To find reasons for "whether" and "why."

Life is confusion, life is hard;
But there is deeper purpose behind,
And someday we will see, in a world yet to come,
That all made perfect sense in God's mind.

Just to Sit in God's Presence

It's estimated that 47 million adults in the United States--and as many as 40 percent of children--suffer from sleep deprivation. Overcrowded schedules that get people up early and keep them up late are usually blamed, but that's only part of the story. It's quite possible to spend eight or even nine hours in bed every night and still be sleep-deprived, and it's also possible to have only a few hours of literal sleep and still be adequately rested. A body that never rests, physically or emotionally, while conscious will have a harder time falling asleep, staying asleep, and getting the most out of sleep.

Many people's idea of "rest" is blacking out from utter exhaustion. That's not a Biblical definition. When God gave the command to rest from work one day a week, He didn't say that the day was to be spent in bed. It's quite likely He hoped His people would keep the same number of actual waking hours as on work days, which is what modern medical experts recommend for optimal health, despite the tradition of "sleeping late on Sundays." The sort of rest that was to be observed on the Sabbath involved learning to love God and others better: worshiping, enjoying nature, watching the world go by, light meals and pleasant talk with friends.

It's sad that Judeo-Christian history has repeatedly twisted God's rest time into a long list of "don't do this, don't do that." It's even sadder that we fail to do any resting of the above kind except on our days off, if then. Like Martha, we try so hard to please the Lord through what we do for Him that we can't hear Him urging us to just sit and talk with Him for a while--and we even scold our sisters and brothers for being "lazy" when they decide to take in a little quiet time while there's still work to be done.

It's wonderful if we go to church every Sunday (and to bed every night); but if we have no personal time with God during the week, chances are we'll be in no condition to give Him our attention during the service. It takes considerably less than "seven days without God" to make "one weak."

There's time in this world for labor,
And time in this world for fun:
But just to sit in God's presence
Is a gift like no other one.

Make space in your heart for Scripture,
Make space in your heart for creeds:
But just to savor God's presence
Will supply a great host of needs.

To go to your prayer in duty
Is better than not at all:
But oh, how endlessly sweeter
To respond in love to His call!

On Toward the Goal

St. Paul wrote, "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:12b-14).

Paul knew something of ancient sporting events, which included distance races from which our modern marathon is descended. Every marathon has its share of dropouts. Some fall due to injury. Some tire prematurely because they try to run all out rather than pacing themselves. A few get called out to tend to emergencies. Some just quit because they decide it's too hard. And some, sad to say, turn aside to more attractive things on the sidelines.

They all have their counterparts in the spiritual race of life. Many a Christian has burnt out from ignoring God's command to rest regularly, or has fallen prey to the lures of this world. Then there are those who drag their feet and grumble, "No one told me it would be this much work." As Jerry Bridges noted (in Trusting God Even When Life Hurts), the marathon isn't really an adequate metaphor: "The Christian life could better be described as an obstacle course of marathon length." At least real-life marathons are run over smooth ground, without continued training after the race starts, without an enemy constantly waiting the chance to trip us.

Nonetheless, those who persevere in the Christian race will finish. A clue for those seeking encouragement when the going gets tough is found in Paul's words above: "Straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal." In other words, keep your eyes on the Heavenly vision.

Those who have the reward in clear focus waste little time bemoaning the distance between.

We are not yet made perfect, though growing;
We are not yet completely made whole;
But, as Christ made us His and works in us,
Let us press ever on toward the goal.

We have things in our past that are shameful,
But Christ’s blood cleans the filthiest soul:
So, forgetting what now lies behind us,
Let us press ever on toward the goal.

We grow tired time to time, and discouraged,
But all things still are in God’s control:
So, renewed in our faith and thus strengthened,
Let us press ever on toward the goal.

Our reward will be waiting in Heaven,
Where all things are completely made whole:
So, with eyes on the One Who has called us,
Let us press ever on toward the goal!