When Distractions Keep Us From Life

“Mom. Mom. Mom!” I looked up at my son. “I’m sorry. What?” I asked. “Did you hear anything I said?” “No,” I admitted. “I think you are addicted to your phone,” he remarked. Does this sound like a conversation in your house sometimes? Unfortunately it has happened to both me and my wife.
Justifications and excuses linger on the tip of our tongues. You want to tell them about the “important” email you had to send. But the truth is, they're right.

One of the biggest drains of our time is technology because of the access it gives us to a virtual life. Our lives revolve around this access and its pull on us is strong. There’s always email to check, texts to respond to, statuses to update, images and videos to see or post. And they must be done right away (or so we think), putting everything else on pause. No doubt, technology provides many benefits to our lives. But we can’t be naïve to the consequences, including primarily its impact on our in-person relationships. It entices us away from face-to-face contact and real authentic connections. More often than not, it’s a time waster. It sucks us in and consumes hours. We think we are logging in to check one thing and an hour later we finally come up for air. The limited granules in the sands of our life’s clock trickle down while our fingers swipe and click our days away. And like all our kids remind us sometimes; much of real life is missed when our eyes are glued to the screen of our virtual life?

Technology, like anything good, can turn sour when our hearts distort its role. The ability we have to read emails, texts, and status updates gives us a rush. It’s fun, and we just keep going back for more. But time is too valuable. It is a treasure in its own right. And make no mistake: the inordinate use of technology lusts for our time, and our treasure, which lusts for our hearts. It subtly moves in and tries to prop up the idol of self, attempting to convince us that the virtual world of “me, myself, and I” is more important than the real life happening right in front of us. When I really think about it, my heart is convicted. I don’t want my kids to think that I care more about responding to a message than I do about them. When we consider how much time we waste, time we will never get back, we're doubly convicted. Guilt settles in. We try harder and set rules for our use of technology. We resolve to not be consumed by it. But then sooner or later we fail again.

Scripture touches all areas of our life, including this battle with how we use technology. In his letter to the Romans, Paul speaks about his own battle with sin. He expressed a frustration to which we can all relate, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15). We are all sinners. “There is no one righteous, not one” (Romans 3:10). As long as we live in this world, we will battle against our sinful nature. But Paul points us to the source of our help, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24–25). Many of us may realize the pull that technology has on us and feel the weight of our guilt because of the wasted time. But like Paul says, Jesus is our rescuer. He came to redeem us from each and every sin, including the squandering away our time on the iPhone. His perfect life has become ours. His sacrificial death paid our debt in full. What this means is that the work of Christ is sufficient and complete to cover all our sins and empower our fight in the struggle.

Every time we fail and stumble in this battle against sin, we need to return to the gospel over and over again. Though the pull of sin is strong, and though technology tempts us with its false claims of affirmation, success, and importance, the power of God’s grace is stronger. It is his grace that saves us from the power of sin and it is his grace that saves us from the presence of sin in our daily lives. The cross stands there for us, not as a one-time source for forgiveness and assurance of eternal salvation, but also as a source of grace for each moment of our days. And as we turn from our sin in repentance, we can respond in thanksgiving to our gracious God because though we are more sinful than we ever thought, we are also more loved and more forgiven than we will ever know.

You know it and I know it, there are more important things in our life than what our computers and phones and online platforms have to offer. As we seek to redeem our time for eternity, we must rest in the grace of Christ and cling to this promise: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

Sass Is My Transformation

There is a new complexity that has popped up into our lives; and that complexity stands at barely three feet tall. I'm speaking of our little girl. Our son had all of about two weeks of the terrible two's, then was very calm up till now. However, our daughter is a totally different story. She has embraced the terrible two's, added in the third and fourth year, and tacked on the attitude of a teenager. As I like to say, "the sass is strong with this one." Some days I wake up and nothing seems to go right. The alarm fails to sound. The kids are slow to get ready. The fridge is empty of food for breakfast, (or at least empty of the one thing they want). And then the route to work is filled with red lights. Soon I find myself at work while she bounces off the walls. After work, we stop at the grocery store on the way home (for the one thing they will eat) and she acts like a wild animal that broke free from a zoo. My heart sighs and I wish I could just rewind time and start the day all over.

Days like this would often leave me in despair. I felt frustrated, stressed, and overwhelmed. I desperately tried to figure out why my life was chaotic and how I could fix it. And then I felt guilty over my inability to do so. I thought that maybe I just needed to be more organized. If I could get control over the details of my life, maybe I wouldn’t have these stressful days. I searched the blogs and read the books, hoping to find ways to make my life run smoothly, thinking the whole time that there must be something I can do; that there must be someway to grab back control over my days. But I really needed theology. I needed what I knew about God to press down deep into my daily life. I realized that if I believe in the doctrine of God’s sovereignty I had to face the truth that God is never surprised by any frustrating event I encounter. Spurgeon once said that even a speck of dust cannot move unless God wants it to. God is in sovereign control of all he has made and of all the details of our lives. “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” (Psalm 135:6).

Since this is true, since nothing happens outside God’s will and plan, then my daily parenting challenges are under his sovereign control, too. He knows about the tantrums over lost toys, the kids getting sick right before an important event, and the everyday-stress of getting children to go to sleep. He is not surprised by sibling spats, markers on the walls, my daughter cutting her hair and hiding it under her bed, or potty timing fiascos. All the events of our lives that feel out of our control are actually in God’s control. Lamentations 3:37–38 says, “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” God is in control of every circumstance and every event of our lives, and he uses them, often in some mysterious way, to change us more into the likeness of Christ. What this means for me as a parent is that every late appointment and every empty jug of milk is sovereignly decreed and used for my good. My child’s tantrum is for my transformation.

And this truth has given me great freedom. Instead of despairing over the seemingly random and chaotic events in my life, I can view them in light of his sovereign care. When my days are long and everything seems to go wrong, I know it has all happened for a reason. In fact, all of my parenting challenges are used for my spiritual good — they are to make me more like Christ (Romans 8:28–29). This is what God is about. He is not in the business of making my life comfortable and free of any stress. He has something greater planned for me: my holiness. In the midst of the chaos, I see Jesus and how much I need the gospel each and every moment. The God of grace who saved me from sin is the God of grace who will help me have patience in the close confines of my home. Every challenging situation becomes an opportunity for me to trust him, to obey, to learn, to grow, to rely more on his grace.

So when the dryer breaks and I get a flat tire, instead of despair there is hope. Life doesn’t feel out of control if we know Who is in control. We can trust and rest in God’s sovereignty, knowing that he is using our every stress for our transformation and his glory.

The Dragon Under Our Beds

How we approach a situation reveals what we expect to find. Imagine it is 2 A.M. and I’m asleep. My wife taps my shoulder and says, “I heard something. I think there’s an intruder downstairs.” My mind immediately kicks into high-gear. I reach underneath my bed and grab the only thing I can find to protect the family, a roll of wrapping paper. "Oh well." So I slowly make my way to the kitchen where my wife heard the sound. Even though I live in a older house, I know exactly how to sneak down my staircase without making a creak. My heart pounds in the still night. My eyes search in the dark: the doors, the hallway mirror, the main-level windows that I know a person can squeeze through. Meanwhile, my wife is upstairs with her phone. She has dialed “9” and “1,” and she has her finger waiting on that second “1.” She’s waiting for me to scream, or for someone else to scream after I yell, “Fore!” See, my whole approach to this situation reveals what I expected to find.

But now imagine that at 2 A.M. my four-year-old daughter taps my shoulder, “Daddy, there’s a dragon underneath my bed.” I smile dreamily at her. “Okay, pumpkin,” I mumble. “Let’s go take care of that dragon.” Slowly, I slip out of the covers and drop my feet on the bedroom floor. Holding her hand, I stumble toward her room. But don’t confuse my walking for waking; I am still in stage two of R.E.M. — pretty much unconscious. I get to her room and kneel down, dutifully sticking my face under her bed. “Nope,” I say, “No dragons under here. Go back to sleep, pumpkin. I’ll see you in the morning.” Now, we know this would have been very different had I thought dragons were real. The point stands: how I approached the situation revealed what I expected to find.

And here’s the question for us this weekend: How will we approach God in worship? Do we expect an intruder? Or just a “dragon” under our beds? Is he a real person we will encounter? Or do we keep him imaginary? Many of us open our Bibles claiming readiness to “hear from God,” but the way we really approach the word looks different. Maybe we just want to check off the box or impress our friends or pacify our small group leader. Many of us claim that prayer is our opportunity to “speak with God,” but the way we really pray looks different. Maybe we just dash off a few well-worn clichés, again. And many of us say we are going to the church’s gathering to “meet with God,” but the real approach, well, it looks different, too. We stumble in hardly awake, like we’re chasing down dragons under our beds.

But God is no fictional character lurking in our imagination. He is the Lion of Judah (Revelation 5:5). He is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). David says to him, “O you who hear prayer” (Psalm 65:2). And he proclaims, “Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts!” (Psalm 65:4).

As we come together in worship, God will bring us near — and near he will be. How we approach him reveals what we think we’ll find.

The Church Cleaner

She is always in church, wearing faded jeans, an old t-shirt and slippers to clean and arrange the seats, decorate and clean the pulpit whenever it is dirty. For six years, she never missed a single Saturday coming to clean the church.

One Saturday, a young man walked into the church while she was still arranging the chairs. He went and sat down watching as the lady was working. He was impressed that a lady who looked quite beautiful even in the old clothes and scarf over her hair could be so dedicated to her work in the church. He thought within himself that this was an unfortunate lady who probably had no one to take care of her education and could probably be an orange seller or some petty trader struggling to make ends meet at the market stall. He watched and within his heart felt he knew what God wanted him to do. When he had felt a compulsion to come very early to church, he had not understood but now he thought he did.

He went back to his car and took out some money. When the lady finished her work and was about to leave, he called her and commended her for her service and gave her the money. She respectfully declined the money, but he insisted pressing it into her hands. He asked if she lived close so he could give her a ride. She thanked him and told him that her car was outside, but he did not understand what she had said. He walked her out determined to find out all he could about this lady that God wanted him to help change her level. They walked out of the church with him telling her where he worked and how God had asked him to come early to church that day and how he believed God was directing him to make a difference in her life. He was so busy talking he had not realized they had walked directly to a BMW X6 2017 limited edition parked under trees in the parking lot.

The car made his one year old car look like a worn out wheelbarrow. The lady opened the driver's door stepped in and handed over her card to the man and said, "I believe God sent you here for a purpose, but I do not think it was to change my level, most likely it was to change yours." I am tempted to say it took a forklift to shut the young man's mouth and move him from his place he was glued to as the lady drove off. God had a purpose for bringing him to church that morning and that purpose was to teach him humility which he learned well.

Many times we think so highly of ourselves that where God sends us to learn we go trying to teach. We always imagine ourselves as teachers, never as students. Pride and lack of humility have brought many great people to their knees. I personally have felt this perception about me on many occasions. We as humans have a bad habit of judging others by looks, financial status, personality, or many other reasons. In our hectic lives it's easier to superficially judge someone rather than spend the time to get to know them. I've known poor people that were the salt of the earth, and also some that were truly not good. In the same respect, I've known wealthy people that go out of their way to give the shirt off their back in helping others. As well there are many who are wealthy that feel their level makes them greater than others.

We will all have our day of a reality check. Whether it be sooner, and there is time to change our lives. Or on that Day of Judgement, when reality will come full force and there will be no time to change. Oh Lord teach us to be humble. We are all the same, sinners in need of a reality check. Sinners in the need of salvation. Sinners in the need of forgiveness. Help us to keep our pride in check, and always stay humble.

Heavenly Sense

In the sixteenth-century Netherlands, Dirk Willems had been labeled an "Anabaptist" during the rule of Spanish Catholics and imprisoned. Now he was running for his life. He had escaped out the tiny window and lowered himself on a rope made of old rags. Landing on the frozen pond along side of the prison wall, he stepped gingerly on the ice, wondering if he would fall through. But the months of starvation endured in prison now served him well. He barely weighed one hundred pounds.

Before he reached the other side of the pond, a scream broke the night silence. "Halt immediately!" yelled the guard coming out the window Dirk had climbed through only moments ago. Dirk was too close to freedom. He kept going.

The guard yelled again as he set foot on the ice. Quickly he began to chase after Dirk, but on his third step there was a crack. A splash followed as the guard fell through the ice. His screams changed to shrieks of cold and terror. "Help me, please! Help me!" Dirk paused, looking toward freedom. Then he turned and quickly made his way back to the prison pond. He laid on his stomach and stretched his arms to rescue the nearly frozen guard. In sarcastic gratitude, the guard grabbed Dirk and ordered him back to his cell. Despite his heroism, Dirk was burned at the stake for his faith.

Committed Christians don't live according to common sense. They do the unthinkable with full knowledge of the consequences. They do the impossible as if it were commonplace. Believers live according to a higher calling. Their actions and reactions are so unnatural that they are often misunderstood. For some, Dirk's extreme rescue seems an unnatural choice. Even, perhaps, a bit foolish. Dirk, however, believed he was simply following the basics of the Bible. He put another's needs above his own.

When we make sacrifices, we may not always make sense to the world, but we know we are making progress from a heavenly perspective. Do you most often live according to common sense? Or are you committed to following God's commands at any cost?

Do We Fear Rest?

Have you ever fallen into the busy trap? Do you never stop working or doing some form of activity? Have you ever said the term, “Rest is for the weak or the dead"? When your heart is saying things like that, your hands won’t stop finding things to do. The busy trap is the self-defeating spiral of nonstop action that feeds on the belief that restfulness is weakness. But rest is not weakness. Rest is an irreducible ingredient for the life that enjoys God.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why, exactly, God would get so upset when Israel forgot to practice the Sabbath? In Ezekiel 20, the prophet is going after Israel for this very thing. There, God says, “I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them” (Ezekiel 20:12). Yet, Israel refused to rest. By forgetting to stop, we forget God. Restlessness, the refusal to lay down our work so we can open our arms to God, means that our busy hands are always full. This robs God of glory; his weighty significance in our lives. Holy time given to a holy God makes us more wholly aware that we are not gods; we neither create nor save ourselves. God does. If we won’t stop to experience the glory of God in rest, we won’t be able to glorify him in work either.

Forgetting God has deadly side effects. If we won’t worship God in rest, then our work will soon metastasize into the worship of some idol; self-importance, control, money, or recognition. That’s exactly what Israel had done. By working without Sabbath rest, the work of their hands became the idols of their hearts. Ezekiel continues, “because they rejected my rules and did not walk in my statutes, and profaned my Sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols” (Ezekiel 20:16). Our hearts are not neutral. Chances are, if we’re not finding our rest in God, we’re wrongly finding it somewhere else. Tell me, if you imagine a regular day of actual rest, does it make you feel anxious? Your fear of stopping might reveal what you’re really worshiping. Because anxiety is very often the evidence of unbelief.

One doesn’t actually need the Bible to see the effects of ceaseless labor. You may achieve some good goals. You may acquire money and career success. Your course may chart steadily upward, for a while. But at what cost: sleeplessness, anxiety, overwork, dissolved relationships, a damaged marriage, distant children, and a neglected God? We work without rest to arrive at some future rest without work. But that’s a bad deal on both sides. Humans weren’t made to work without rest. But even if you burn the midnight oil, scorching the candle on both ends, then what? You arrive at your retirement; a rest with no work. And slowly you begin to realize that too is a nightmare. Humans weren’t made for that either. Jeremiah shows us what such a life looks like when the Lord says, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). A restless life is like trying to fill a bucket that is constantly leaking. No matter how much we save, spend, exert, or fret, the dripping away of our lives will eventually lead to ruin. Rest returns us to the true fountain and mends the vessels of our lives to carry the water we find there.

If it is true that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, and it is true, then it is a sad irony that so many of us Christians refuse to pause long enough to enjoy him. Sure, you can love God in your work (and you should!). But the God and Father of Jesus Christ is not the false god of Pharaoh who demands ceaseless work to gain entry into their paltry heavens. The true God has actually done all the work necessary to invite us to rest in him. You can learn the art of rest, but only if you’ll repent of your restlessness. The end of Ezekiel’s prophecy promises that one day God’s people will no longer forsake their rest. And when they learn to stop, they’ll walk in more health and provision than they had ever known (Ezekiel 44:23–31). This is why Jesus was able to look at his weary people and say, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30)

The restless will only find their rest in him. You will only find your rest in him.

The Empty Pocket

The story is told of a man with two pockets. One pocket has a hole that he never repairs. The other pocket has no holes, and if a hole develops, he gets it sown up immediately. Throughout the day, whenever he experiences something negative, he puts it in the pocket with a hole. But every good thing he experiences, he places in the pocket without the hole. Every evening, he empties out his pocket and all he has are blessings.

Too many of us put all the good in our lives in the pocket with holes. We take them for granted, forget them, and don’t treasure them. Yet, all the negative things we deal with, our problems, frustrations, and worries, we place in the pocket with no holes. Then at the end of the day, we empty our pockets and find all sorts of problems and no blessings.

A quick look at Facebook and Twitter shows how many people today feel #blessed. In our social-media world, saying you’re blessed can be a way of boasting while trying to sound humble. College scholarship? #Blessed. Unexpected raise? #Blessed. Wonderful family? #Blessed. As Christians we use that term too, of course. We pray God will bless our family. We attribute our undeserved gifts to “God’s blessings.” We talk about ministries being blessed. But what does it really mean? How should we understand the blessing of God? For believers, is the blessed life synonymous with the successful life? Is it the Christian version of the good life? A loving marriage, obedient children, a vibrant ministry, a healthy body, a successful career, trusted friends, financial abundance — if these are the characteristics of a blessed life, then having all of them should translate into an extraordinarily blessed life. But does it? If someone had all those things, would they be extraordinarily blessed? Rather than turning to God, they might feel self-sufficient and proud. Perhaps a bit smug and self-righteous. After all, their hard work would be yielding good fruit. Moreover, they wouldn’t need to cry out to God for deliverance; everything would already be perfect. They wouldn’t need to trust God; they could trust in themselves. They wouldn’t need God to fill them; they would already be satisfied.

My desire for God is greatly fueled by my need. And it is in the areas of loss where I feel my need most intensely. Unmet desires keep me on my knees. Deepen my prayer life. Make me ransack the Bible for God’s promises. Earthly blessings are temporary; they can all be taken away. Job’s blessings all disappeared in one fateful day. Trials ground our faith in ways that prosperity and abundance never could. While our trials may not be blessings in themselves, they were channels for them. As Laura Story asks in her song “Blessings,” “What if your blessings come through rain drops? What if trials of this life — the rain, the storms, the hardest nights — are your mercies in disguise?” This revolutionary idea of blessing is also firmly established in Scripture. One translation of the New Testament (ESV) has 112 references with the words bless, blessing, or blessed, none of which connect blessing to material prosperity. (Matthew 5:3–4, 10–11), (Luke 11:28), (Romans 4:7; quoting Psalm 32:1), (James 1:12), (Revelation 14:13, 19:9).

There is no hint of material prosperity or perfect circumstances in any New Testament reference. On the contrary, blessing is typically connected with either poverty and trial or the spiritual benefits of being joined by faith to Jesus. According to the Key-Word Study Bible, “The Greek word translated blessed in these passages is makarioi which means to be fully satisfied. It refers to those receiving God’s favor, regardless of the circumstances” What is blessing, then? Scripture shows that blessing is anything God gives that makes us fully satisfied in him. Anything that draws us closer to Jesus. Anything that helps us relinquish the temporal and hold on more tightly to the eternal. And often it is the struggles and trials, the aching disappointments and the unfulfilled longings that best enable us to do that.

Learn to let go of all the bad and hold fast to all the good so that, at the end of the day and the end of your life, you’ll find yourself with no worries— just a pocket full of blessings.

What Will You Do With Your 1,440?

What if I gave you 1,440 dollars a day? What if I told you I would give you that amount every day as long as it was spent completely everyday? Would you be able to spend 1,440 dollars each day? I'm pretty sure everyone could easily do it. God gives us 1,440 minutes everyday. Are we using all that given time? Are we using that time wisely, or are we wasting it much like the way we would probably waste the 1,440 dollars each day?

This was brought up during the sermon on Sunday and it got me thinking. What if we were only guaranteed our next allotment of 1,440 minutes if the previous ones were all used, and used wisely? I'd have to say there would be an extreme drop in the population. So why would we spend the entirety of the money without a second thought, but not use each minute we are given?

We pack our day as full as we possibly can, but why? How much of that time do we use in giving back to the One who gave us everything? Time is a strange thing. We can find ways to make things take less time. We can manufacture tools and devices to help us accomplish more in less time. But there is nothing we can do to manipulate or take control of time itself. It moves on at the same rate of speed it always has, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second. The highway of time has no rest stops, only non-returnable exits. David teaches us this in Psalms 39:4–5, Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. James says something similar: “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Paul cautions us in Ephesians 5:15–16, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

When it comes to my time, I don’t want any regrets. I never want to say “if-only.” I don't want to take my time for granted and assume it’s an endless supply. Time is precious. We are fragile. Life is short. Eternity is long. Every minute counts. Oh, to be a faithful steward of the breath God has given me.
Time really is like money, it’s something God gives us to steward. We can invest in things that produce an eternal dividend or in things that end in bankruptcy. The question here is, how are we investing the little time we have? Is it filled with an endless stream of activities to fill up the minutes? Is it used up by numbing entertainment so we can get other things done? When our time is almost over, will we look back and wish we had used our time differently? I don't want to have any regrets.

If you made a pie chart of how you use your time, how much of it is invested in the eternal souls of your family, friends, and strangers alike? Does the time spent in mindless activities grossly outweigh the time spent in pointing them to Jesus? Are you spending more time watching them from the sidelines than you are sitting beside them with the gospel on your lips? We can often be distracted by the details of life and miss the numerous opportunities to instruct others in the gospel. Pray that God would give you a ready awareness of those moments. Be willing to set aside other tasks to invest in other's hearts.

Time is a vapor. Blink once and it’s gone. We all have a responsibility to steward and invest the time God gives us in things that produce lasting and eternal dividends. Let’s use the precious and limited time we have with peope by investing in their hearts. Life is short. By God’s grace, don’t waste it.

You Have To Disappoint Someone

Why do you spend your time doing what you do? Why do you say yes to doing some things and no to doing other things? Are you saying yes and no to the right things? These are unnerving, exposing questions to ask. Most of us would like to believe we say yes and no to our time commitments based on objective, logical assessments of what appears most important. But that is very often not the case. Very often we make these decisions based on subjective assessments of what we believe others will think of us if we do or don’t do them. How other people perceive us, or how we think they’ll perceive us, has an extraordinary influence on how we choose to use our time. Coming to terms with ways we seek people’s approval or fear their disapproval will force us to face humbling truths about ourselves and may require repentance and uncomfortable change. But given how brief our lives are, and how limited our energy and other resources are, we need to heed what God says to each one of us through the apostle Paul: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:15–17)

And one way to carefully examine our use of time and energy is to invite the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and see if and where we are influenced to say yes or no out of a fear of man. Here is the question we must ask ourselves: “Who are you willing to disappoint?” At first this might seem like a negative and perhaps unloving way to decide what we should or shouldn’t do. But it really isn’t. It’s actually a clarifying question. It isn’t asking us who are the people we will choose not to love. It’s asking us what we are really pursuing in our time commitments. Whose approval are we seeking? God’s? Other people’s? Of those, whose?

I think this is what Jesus was getting at with Martha in Luke 10:38–42. Martha was “distracted with much serving” (Luke 10:40). I imagine nearly everyone in her home that day thought she was doing a good thing. Martha herself thought this, which is why she requested Jesus’s support in exhorting Mary to get busy helping. She didn’t seem to be aware of her own motivations. But Jesus was. He saw the deeper motivations in both Martha and Mary. Martha was “anxious and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41). Martha’s time commitment was being motivated by anxiety, not love. Given the context, it’s reasonable to assume her anxiety stemmed from what all her houseguests would think of her if she stopped waiting on them and did what Mary was doing. Mary had “chosen the good portion” (Luke 10:42). Superficial observers of the situation might have concluded Martha chose the good portion and Mary was being inconsiderate. I would guess Mary felt this irony. She knew Martha very well. I imagine she knew she was disappointing Martha by listening to Jesus instead of helping serve the guests. But in that moment, Mary was more willing to disappoint Martha than to disappoint Jesus. And Jesus commended her.

And that’s the question for us too: who are we willing to disappoint? Or, who are we unwilling to disappoint? The exposing question for Martha was, who was she willing to disappoint?
We all choose to serve those we’re unwilling to disappoint. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, though it certainly can be a bad thing. God actually designed us to function this way. He made us to be motivated by what we love, and we always fear to disappoint the one(s) we love. Now, I know the apostle John said, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). But he was addressing a different kind of fear, the fear of “punishment” or condemnation. John meant that God’s children no longer need to live in terror of God’s wrath. But perfect love does indeed produce a certain kind of fear:

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 10:12) This kind of fear is not merely the terror of wrath, but the fear we have when we don’t want to disappoint the one(s) we really love. The kind of fear that “serve(s) the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2) is the fear that comes from the thought of disappointing the one we treasure most. We fear to lose the treasure. But serving those we’re unwilling to disappoint can be a very bad thing, even a tyrannical thing, if our loves are idolatrous. If, whether out of anxiety, selfish ambition, narcissism, or some other sinful love, we are motivated by someone else’s approval over God’s approval, our service can become our destruction. And the thing is, like Martha, we might not be fully aware of our own motives. We might think we’re doing good things when we’re not. One indicator to look at is how often we feel “anxious and troubled.”

Notice I didn’t say “weary.” It’s clear from the New Testament that a heavy workload, and even suffering and persecution, can be given to us by God. But an anxious, troubled spirit might mean what’s motivating our busyness are efforts to please the wrong persons. If that’s true, we’re likely due for a reevaluation of our time commitments. We should ask the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and try our thoughts (Psalm 139:23). We should ask ourselves the hard question: who are we willing to disappoint? Or who are we unwilling to disappoint? Are we unwilling to disappoint God? Are we unwilling to disappoint others? Are we unwilling to disappoint our own selfish preferences? These questions can help us untangle motivational knots. And if we’re tempted to avoid facing the answers, let’s remember that life is too short and God is too precious to give our years and our strength to the fear of man. Joshua exhorts us from the ancient past: “Choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). Let’s respond with him, “We will serve the Lord” with all our heart and soul in the gladness of love-inspired fear (Deuteronomy 10:12; Psalm 100:2).

No One Ever Visits

"The children in front of us had been found in gutters, dumpsters, alleyways, and other deserted corners of the city. Most of them were born with physical or mental disabilities, burdens that felt too heavy to parents already buckling under poverty. So they were left for dead. Our team had traveled to Africa’s horn primarily to train a group of local pastors, but one of our team leaders also coordinated a visit to an orphanage. We rocked infants, laughed with toddlers, encouraged the staff, and prayed over the heads of these abandoned children. On our way out, the staff gathered to thank us for coming. At first, their gratitude seemed a touch over the top, certainly more than our short visit had warranted. But I began to understand as one man shared a brief but startling sentence: “No one ever visits.”

This was part of an article I read about orphanages in Africa, and it got me thinking about everywhere else in America this could be said. What neighbors, what church members, what relatives are watching hordes of people pass by while they quietly ache for a visitor? Westerners may not walk past many orphanages, but we constantly walk past people who feel forgotten, neglected, and desperately lonely: the depressed, the disabled, the socially awkward, the grieving, the elderly. Though often surrounded by people, many of the most hurting rarely receive a visitor. They rarely find someone who will not merely brush by with a smile, but will stop, sit, and linger for a while. Someone who will climb down into the miry bog of their complex problems and place a tender hand on their shoulder. When was the last time you strayed from your circle of family and friends, set aside the to-do list, and simply visited with someone needy?

Of course, we could think of a legion of reasons for why we neglect to visit the most broken among us. Their issues are thorny and ingrained, with no quick fixes. Their pain can drain our emotional reserves to the dry bottom. Demands already lean into us from all directions — the needs of our own souls, the problems of our family and friends, tasks at work or school. Nevertheless, Scripture repeatedly describes the people of God as a people who visit. According to James, visiting sits near the center of sincere spirituality: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27). And according to Jesus, visiting is one of the indispensable marks of his sheep: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For . . . I was sick and you visited me” (Matthew 25:34–36). Disciples of Jesus not only preach, sing, pray, and serve. They visit.

Most fundamentally, Christians visit the needy because God does. The God of the universe is a visiting God, a God who is never too busy to knock on the door of the lowly and come in for a while.
He may oversee the orbits of distant solar systems, but he is still mindful of man, even the smallest of them (Psalm 8:2–4). He may sit enthroned “in his holy habitation,” but he still befriends the orphan, protects the widow, and settles the solitary in a home (Psalm 68:5–6). He may be “God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God,” but he still takes up the cause of the afflicted and, like a tender nurse, binds up the brokenhearted (Deuteronomy 10:17–18; Psalm 147:3). When God came down to earth, he came to visit — to dignify the outcasts (John 4:7–10), to feast with the despised (Mark 2:15–17), to touch the leprous (Matthew 8:2–4), to hear the forgotten (Luke 18:35–43), and to raise the broken children of Adam from the dust of death.
When we visit the needy, we are reflecting the image of our visiting God. We are joining Jesus on the roads of love. We are following at our Father’s heels.

When we visit, we take God’s promises and give them a body; our own body. We take God’s testimony about himself and bring it into living rooms and coffee shops and front porches. And as we do, we help desperate people believe that God might actually be as good as he says he is. When we listen to a depressed twentysomething with steadfast patience, we are embodying God’s invitation to come and pour out your heart before him (Psalm 62:8). When we befriend an autistic neighbor and labor to understand his peculiar world, we are displaying, on a small scale, God’s intimate knowledge and care for him (Psalm 40:5; 1 Peter 5:7). When we engage in a conversation with a socially awkward small group member, not looking for an escape, but pressing in with creative questions, we illustrate the warm welcome Jesus offers to us in the gospel (Romans 15:7). When we pursue the grieving, not only in the weeks after the loss, but months and even years later, we act out God’s ongoing healing and comfort on a miniature stage (Psalm 147:3; 2 Corinthians 1:3). When we visit the nursing home to hear the stories (even if we’ve already heard them ten times), we become a flesh-and-blood symbol of God’s promise, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

Every day, we walk past people who could say the same words heard at the orphanage: “No one ever visits.” As we visit the hurting, consistently imitating our Father and speaking his word, our aim is not simply to leave them saying, “Someone finally visited me,” but to leave them with the holy sense that, through us, God himself has visited them.

Loving Our Spouse Through Suffering

“Lord, I pray you will do a physical miracle in my wife, but if you choose not to, then work a spiritual miracle in me so that I can love her well until the end.”

These were the words of Dr. Robertson McQuilkin, shortly after receiving his wife’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. His response pierced my heart — as if someone had reached into my soul and exposed a hidden place of fear and insecurity. Will my spouse be able to love me well until the end, even if our life is never free from the painful effects of chronic illness? Will they reach a point where the sacrifice becomes too great? Could I even blame them if they did?

Statistically, 45% of the population live with at least one chronic illness, which means many marriages and families are also being impacted by its devastating effects. In our marriage my wife has had numerous illness that caused her to have multiple surgeries since she was seventeen. Yet every time she was plagued with an illness, my first response was always how can I take this away from her. It's the same way with my children. It physically pains me that I can not heal them when they are sick.

 I truly believe that God has sovereignly ordained this marriage, this family, and this suffering for his eternal purposes — and for our eternal happiness. It has developed in me a greater sense of servitude to the ones I love. A growing experience in putting others before myself. For the one who chronically suffers, there is always a tension between wanting to escape the pain on one side, and learning to trust and rest in where God has us. The spouse, however, bears the pain indirectly. They do not feel the physical pain that their spouse does. They often carry a greater load of responsibility than normal, while grieving the loss of how things used to be and feeling helpless and frustrated with their inability to ease their pain.

Whether we are the suffering spouse, or suffer alongside of our spouse like Dr. McQuilkin, we can glean wisdom from their godly responses as we walk the hard road of chronic pain or illness in our marriages. We don’t have to settle for survival. We can strive to experience a deeper love for the Lord and each other in the midst of our suffering. Whether the suffering comes from  physical sickness, depression, or other ailment, we can learn to avoid turning inward and against one another in the struggle. We need to consistently go to the Lord first with our needs and desires, and then take steps to communicate with our spouse on how to navigate the realities of chronic illness together. If we who suffer get trapped in the wrong thinking that our pain is ours to bear alone and nothing more than a burden to our spouse (or children), we will often battle guilt and resentment. We’ll either become hardened to those around us or consumed by the loneliness it often brings.

However, if we realize that God has sovereignly allowed our suffering, not only for our own growth and good, but for our spouse’s as well, it can help us move toward them with a common goal, rather than away in guilt and self-reliance. In fact, we rob our spouses of the God-given role that they’ve been given when we try to live as though we must carry our suffering on our own. We withhold both the privilege of walking alongside us and the opportunity to grow in greater Christlikeness through this trial. May those of us who have been called to live with a long-term illness pray with childlike faith, Lord, heal me if it would be your will, but if not, help me to trust your purposes and love my spouse as you have loved me. Guard me from the deadening cloud of guilt over the burden I feel like I am, and help me trust that you will give my spouse the strength and endurance for the road you have called them to walk.

And may those who have been entrusted with the high calling of loving and serving their spouse with chronic illness be able to pray like Dr. McQuilkin, “Lord, I pray you will do a physical miracle in my wife, but if you choose not to, then work a spiritual miracle in me so that I can love her well until the end.”

Trials Through The Fire

We all experience fears of various kinds — fears about the future, about relationships, about work and finances, about our health, or about the ones we love, perhaps even fears about falling away from Christ. Fears often emerge and linger because we don’t know how to fight them. We feel helpless and powerless before their threats. When fears arise, how do you respond? When bills pile up, some of us let them consume our thoughts; others push them far out of our minds. When layoffs are happening at work, and our job is in jeopardy, some of us isolate ourselves; others take the stress out on our family. When health concerns emerge, some of us distract ourselves with shopping or entertainment; others fall back into an old pattern of sin. Fear often leads us everywhere but to God.

When Moses died, a whole nation was terrified. We know God’s people were afraid, because he says to Joshua three times in four verses, “Be strong and courageous. . . . Only be strong and very courageous. . . . Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:6–9). Maybe you can feel their fear in these words. That makes this passage a kind of field manual for the anxiety and fears we face. What is the first statement God makes to them? “Moses my servant is dead” (Joshua 1:2). He reminds them of what they feared the most: stepping out in faith, into a foreign land, against massive armies, without Moses. God doesn’t avoid reality, or try to distract his people with something else. He addresses the hard truth with honesty. But God means for his people to hear waterfalls of comfort and confidence in those five words. He calls him, “Moses my servant.” Yes, Moses is dead, but he was only a servant sent by your God — and your God will not die. And his promises will never expire. He says, “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them.” Moses may be gone, but God’s promises still live. No matter how bleak the moment, God will never forsake his word to them, or to you. God does not bring good news that downplays or ignores harsh realities. The news he brings is good enough to confront and overcome the worst threats his children face, like death and war and whatever haunts you.

As God sent his people across the Jordan and into danger, he handed them a promise to carry them through the fires: the land is already yours. Yes, great armies await you, and hard battles remain to be won, but this land has already been taken for you. “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses” (Joshua 1:3). Their nervous hands and antsy feet are flesh-and-blood manikins of our lack of faith in challenging or distressing circumstances. God has promised us more in Christ, and with more evidence — at the cross, in the empty tomb, and with the Holy Spirit — and yet we’re often still afraid to trust him and step forward. We let fear silence the clear voice of God in Christ. When you are afraid that you might drown in the river of your finances, or be burned in the fires of affliction, remember that God has said to you, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you” (Isaiah 43:1–2).

What are the most important words God speaks to Israel’s fears? “I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. . . . The Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:5, 9). It’s a promise, but not just of land, or victory over enemies, or peace, or milk and honey. It is a promise from God of God. “I will be with you.” If we really believe the God of the universe is with us — really with us — in whatever fears we face, they will not be so fearful. Our God does everything he promises, in every circumstance, at all times. When life gets hard, he is wooing us to lean harder on his word.

Who in your life is facing daunting circumstances or overwhelming trials, the kind that would tempt them to doubt God’s promises and faithfulness? Who around you needs to hear you say, “Be strong and courageous”? Who needs to be reminded that God has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” and, “I am with you always, to the end of the age”? Remind them what God has promised, and then call them to follow him with strength and courage and joy — and by God’s power, to be free from fear.

True Compassion Is Costly

Our seam-bursting schedules scream for attention. Work deadlines demand, school assignments summon, and social engagements expand our already overburdened loads. Even if we really wanted to, how could we possibly make time to care for someone in need? Can we really make a difference in that struggling teen’s life? Do we compromise the safety of our own family if we invite that stranger into our home for dinner? Can we make any difference in the lives of refugees, even as they feel the new threat to their sojourning among us? Whatever our excuses — and surely we have some good ones — texts like James 1:27 call us as Christians to reassess our priorities.

Let’s face it: compassion is always costly. And not just in dollars dispensed from our bank accounts. Like the list on a medicine label, compassion has side effects. Common side effects may include: discomfort, reduced time for recreation, increased exposure to awkward situations,feelings of helplessness, and any number of other inhibitors. Like the medicine behind the warning label, however, compassion is good for you. But we have to be willing to invest ourselves. Caring for the hurting is more than a recurring withdrawal. Helping those in need will require more than the extra bit of time and effort it takes to pass a granola bar through your car window to a panhandler. Much good can come from donating money and offering a handout, but God inspires more. Visiting orphans and widows demands more than the swipe of a Visa. Biblical compassion compels us to invest in the lives of real people around us in a way that may cost us much but reaps eternal rewards beyond anything we stand to lose today.

In our vernacular, a “Good Samaritan” helps a stranded motorist with a flat tire or maybe carries a heavy box up a flight of stairs for an old woman. Lending a hand is always good, but the Good Samaritan from Jesus’s parable provides costly compassion. When Jesus spoke this parable to a predominantly Jewish audience, Samaritans and Jews hated one another. Jews regarded Samaritans as apostates headed for hell, and yet, the Samaritan in our parable has compassion on this Jewish man left for dead (Luke 10:33). The Samaritan tenderly treated the wounds of his ethnic archenemy. What’s more, this caring man placed the desperately wounded man on his own transport and purchased a room for him at a nearby inn where he continued to provide care. The Samaritan goes so far as to leave behind two days’ worth of wages to ensure the Jewish victim of injustice recovers well. The Samaritan moved toward his enemy in need and painstakingly spent his precious time and money with no regard for the cost. And Jesus says, “You go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).  God moves toward his enemies in costly compassion. Acute needs might not greet you at your doorstep, but you are most likely surrounded by people in difficult, even dire, circumstances.

Every minute, nearly twenty people become victims of domestic violence. Thirty-three percent of women and twenty-five percent of men have endured abuse. More than likely, someone you know quietly suffers domestic abuse. In 2017, over 97,000 people died from drug overdoses — more than any other year on record. According to the New York Times, “Deaths from overdoses are reaching levels similar to the H.I.V. epidemic at its peak” — and there are no signs of slowing. More than likely, someone you know quietly suffers through addiction.

There are more than 400,000 children in foster care, due in no small part to the opioid epidemic. More than likely, your county has children in desperate need of loving homes. The suicide rate in the United States recently hit a thirty-year high. More than likely, someone you know is at risk of harming themselves — possibly fatally. More than likely, you can make a difference in the life of someone who may have never even heard the name of Jesus. This list could lengthen with problems like homelessness or hunger and poverty, and that’s just in America. The global needs are staggering.

Such massive suffering is a cause for lament, but it’s also a call to arms for the church. When we serve the needs around us, we provide an opportunity for those sufferers who do not yet know God to turn to him and bring him glory (Matthew 5:16; 1 Peter 2:12). The hurting and suffering around you can serve as a bridge to the gospel so that present suffering will give way to relief in eternal joy (2 Corinthians 4:17). Jesus carried out the costliest act of compassion, not for his companions, but for criminals guilty of high treason. How much more should we who were once enemies with God (Romans 5:8, 10), who have reaped eternal benefits from God moving toward us in Jesus, jump at the opportunity to move toward the needs of those around us?

Compassion will cost us our time, money, and comfort, but we’ll gain irrepressible joy in serving and not being served (Mark 10:45). We can imitate God’s costly compassion by serving the orphan, the widow, and the refugee because Christ purchased an indestructible treasure for us in heaven beyond anything we might risk losing in the vapor of this life (Matthew 6:19–20). In fact, we’ll find that the path of greatest service is the path of maximum joy for our own souls because, after all, “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).