Okay, so I’ve been wrestling with the big idea that to be faithful is to use money in this life for the sake of the next.  I got it from Luke 16:1-13.  I’ve been thinking through personal assets and expenses that would fall under the non-essential and non-eternal column–stuff I could do without that isn’t really benefiting anybody in the long run anyway.  I see some things that we could trade up.  And by trade up I mean converting the asset or expense into something more worthwhile, more eternally valuable.

Along these lines, I have a confession to make.  I’m praying that God would take my dogs.  Not really.  Well, sort of.  I love my dogs, and they are very well cared for.  And I hate them.  I hate the size of the line item in our budget that says, “pets.”  They are money dogs.  And I am secretly looking forward to that glorious day when there will be no more doggie toys, no more droppings, no more grooming, no more vets, no more special (and really expensive) food, no more doggie meds, no more doggie-sitting while we’re gone.

But tomorrow morning, Dooley is going to saunter in while I’m reading and having my coffee, and I will get on the floor and love on him like always.  And Emma will wait for me to bring coffee to Cathy and then roll over for a belly rub and special game like always.  Which is why I love them.  Sort of.  This using money wisely is tricky.

Last Sunday, I preached on Luke 12:35-48.  My Big Idea was:  To be faithful is to be ready for Christ’s return.  I’ve been trying to allow God to somehow apply this to my life.

I’ve used the Sermon Guide—the new eight-and-a-half-by-eleven card handed out at church with sermon notes on the front, questions for reflection and discussion on the back, and tear-off memory verse at the corner.  Handy.  Who came up with that?

As I read the related Bible passages given in the Guide, I’m sobered.  And inspired.  For example, I read this:

1 Corinthians 3:10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

It seems that, when the Lord returns (or when I kick the bucket), He will evaluate my life as a believer.  Not for the purpose of determining whether I get to heaven; that was settled once and for all when I simply believed in Jesus for eternal life years ago.  But I’ll be evaluated for the purpose of determining rewards in heaven.  And when it comes to rewards, there are two possibilities:  gain or loss.  I could hear, “well done,” or I could be well done.

I prefer the former.  So, I’ve been asking God to show me specifically how I can be ready.  As part of the process, I’ve been thinking about all the things God has entrusted to my care.  And I’ve been asking myself, “If I died today, what would I regret not having done?”

My attention has been drawn to something that’s been on my to-do list for a long time, but it’s easy to put off because it’s not as urgent as, say, sermon preparation.  It’s writing a book.  More specifically, I would like to try to write a book that would be broadly helpful to people.  If I don’t try, I’ll regret it.

God has recently nudged me in the direction of a book in several ways as I have opened myself to applying His call to be ready.  For example, a number of people in the last week have asked me something like, “How is your doctorate coming?”  This is significant because I only have my dissertation left, and I want to write a dissertation that has the potential of becoming a book that would be broadly helpful to people.  Nudge 1.  Then I get an email from the seminary I’m attending, asking me when I expect to complete my doctorate.  Nudge 2.  Then Cathy and I go out to breakfast with some friends who say they’re headed for a week-long retreat in which they are going to write.  Nudge 3.  And, as I’ve wrestled with my calendar and to-do list for the past couple of weeks, I’m reminded that I’ll never get around to anything important but not urgent unless I make it happen.  Nudge 4.

Only one problem.  I have subject block.  I don’t know what to write about.  Too many choices.  Or maybe not enough.  What can say that hasn’t been said?  I’m still processing.  But the “well done” thing has moved it off the back burner.

If I’m not a workaholic, I’m definitely in the neighborhood.  It’s one of the more socially acceptable addictions.  Employers don’t usually mind.  But I suspect God does.

This struck me as I was reading through directions from God to the Israelites on how to observe various holy days on the Jewish calendar.  Check out the thread.  During Passover, “. . . you shall do no customary work (Numbers 28:18).”  During the Feast of Weeks, “. . . you shall do no customary work (Numbers 28:26).”  During the Feast of Trumpets, “. . . you shall do no customary work (Numbers 29:1).”  During the Day of Atonement, “. . . you shall not do any work (Numbers 29:7).”  During the Feast of Tabernacles, “. . . you shall do no customary work (Numbers 29:12).”  Are you sensing a certain pattern here?

Of course, this is a part of the Mosaic Law to which we, as believers in Christ, are no longer bound.  (And a part of me–the workaholic part–is thinking the word “customary” gives me an out anyway–like I’d be okay working continuously as long as I change it up once in while–like work with my underwear on backwards for a day or something.)

But it still makes me wonder:  Why no work during these times?  It’s not because the Bible advocates laziness; it doesn’t.

Maybe it’s because of what work without interruption can do to us.  Or more specifically, what it can do to the relationships most important to us.  Like our relationship with family.  And especially with God.  Work, or more accurately, the buzz I get from it makes a lousy god.  And when I come home day after day with work on my breath, it’s not good.

Cathy and I were just talking about creating some margin in our schedules before I ran across these holy-day instructions in my daily reading.  Hmm.  Maybe God is trying to tell me something.  Or maybe not.  I have work to do.

Last week, in preparation for my Life Group at church, I read Chapter 8 of Larry Crabb’s book, Inside Out.  He touched on the story in Numbers 9:15-23.  This morning, in my reading from the chronological Bible, I encountered Numbers 9:15-23 again.  When this sort of thing happens, I try to pay attention.

It’s the story of how God led the Israelites through the wilderness.  He directed them using a cloud over the tabernacle, their mobile place of worship.  When the cloud moved, they moved.  When the cloud stopped, they stopped.  At night, the cloud became a ball of fire so the people could see it.

I have mixed feelings about this cloud.  On the one hand, I would like God’s direction to be so clear in my life.  Just follow the cloud.  Easy.

On the other hand, I think I would have grown irritated at the inconvenience and unpredictability of the cloud.  Think of it.  Many thousands of Israelites, all different ages, all levels of health and strength on a giant camping trip.  Pitching their tents and taking them down, pitching their tents and taking them down.  Sometimes the cloud had them stay put for only an evening.  Sometimes for a few days.  Sometimes for a month.  Sometimes for a year.  No warning.  No schedule.  No explanation.  Just when you get your tent the way you like it, or just when you think you might be settling into a comfortable routine, or just when you think you need some rest, the cloud moves.  Or just when you’re getting antsy, or just when you’d would like to move on and distance yourself from the bothersome people in the tent next door, or just when you need to see some movement in your life, the cloud stays put for a while.

As I think about how irritated I could be, I’m sobered.  The Israelites had much to be thankful for, as I do.  Liberated from bondage.  Headed for the Promised Land.  Directed, provided for, and empowered by God.  And yet, how easily I can whine about how my life is inconvenienced by the unexpected movement of God.

Lately it seems that Cathy and I are surrounded by tragedy, grief, and suffering. Mostly in the lives of others. In my reading from the past fews days, I came across some verses that offer new help.

Hebrews 5:7 says: While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. I take it such prayers and pleadings include this strong pleading–Jesus fell on His face–to be spared the cross: “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me.” (Mathew 26:39) And this loud cry from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matthew 27:46) Somehow, all these years, I’ve missed the loudness of His cries. Jesus was loud.

This is comforting to me. It gives me permission to be human. Crying out with tears instead of acting out with some piously positive pretense. To cry out loud for some relief and some answers in the face of brokenness and suffering is not a denial of God’s goodness. It’s an authentic admission of our desperate need for it.

I’ve been thinking about the memories of my childhood. I can remember my mom would make me a special breakfast on special days. Even through my college years, my mom would make these special breakfasts when I had an exam. If Mom knew that I was having an important day, she would say, “Bobby, (and don’t let that around), would you like some whole wheat pancakes today? Or maybe some eggs and bacon?” She’d cook me those special breakfasts, and she’d always keep me supplied me with really snappy clothes. We weren’t a wealthy family. We lived in a modest home, but my clothes were snappy. I wore Levi’s 501 jeans, and my mom would put them on stretchers. Unless you’re around my age, you probably don’t even know what stretchers are. You put them in the legs of pants and stretch them tight and then let them dry in the sun. I was one of the only kids with hard creases in my Levi’s 501s. I also remember the vaporizer and the Vicks VapoRub when I was sick. Mom was great.

I remember her calling me when I was out playing. Things were different back then. You could just turn the kids loose to play in the neighborhood and call them when you needed them to come back inside. Mom would call me, and she didn’t call me using a cell phone. She used a yell phone. Interesting how things have changed. If you were to do that today, someone would probably call the police! But my mom, like all of the other mothers in the neighborhood, would open the door and just yell at the top of her lungs, “Bobby! Bobby!” My best friend, Angelo Petropolis, lived about seven doors down, and I could easily hear her from inside Angelo’s house. In fact, I could even hear her at John Hendricks’s house, which was roughly seven doors down, one street back. Somehow, I could hear my mom’s voice. (more…)

I encountered two kinds of amazing restraint this morning. One comes from Exodus 36, where the people of Israel were asked to give toward the building of the tabernacle. No fancy campaigns. No fund-raising consultants. Not even a particularly mature group of givers; they had just come off the golden-calf idolatry. But the people gave so much they had to be restrained: “. . . the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done–indeed too much (Exodus 36:6-7).”

Then I read this from Yancey (from The Jesus I Never Knew, 78), presenting an entirely different kind of restraint, but even more amazing: “The miracles Satan suggested, the signs and wonders the Pharisees demanded, the Final Proofs yearn for–these would offer no serious obstacle to an omnipotent God. More amazing is Jesus’ refusal to perform and to overwhelm. God’s terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that he granted us the power to live as though he did not exist, to spit in his face, to crucify him.”

Amazing restraint, how sweet the sound.

As I’ve been reading through the Bible, I’m encountering lots of forties. Rain for forty days and forty nights brought the flood, the people of Israel ate manna for forty years, etc.

This morning, I encounter another forty. In Exodus, the people of Israel are given commandments from God through Moses, including the command not to worship other gods. But you may recall that they disobey by fashioning a golden calf to worship. How long between the command and the calf? You guessed it: forty days.

And then it occurs to me. What day is today? Day forty of the new year. I have not yet fashioned a golden calf, but I’m definitely “calf-inated.” Prone to wander and grateful for God’s grace.

Sometimes God’s orchestration of my life circumstances takes me in a direction that seems totally unexpected, unreasonable, and unclear. It’s a disconcerting detour that makes no sense. I think God’s Mapquest must have a virus.

But in my reading yesterday, I was reminded that this is nothing new. When God miraculously liberated the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt, He led them to the Promised Land. But not by the most direct, reasonable, clear route everybody expected. Exodus 13:17a says, Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near . . .

Why not the “near” route? I want near. We all want near. Give us near! Everbody knows that you don’t get to Florida from New York through Wyoming. You don’t get to wellness through cancer. You don’t get to wholeness through brokenness. You don’t get to riches through bankruptcy. Everybody knows this.

Everybody except God. He knows that the “near” route would have taken His people to a war they were not equipped to fight. He knows the most direct, logical route would have provoked the Philistines to attack. So God actually saves His people through a disconcerting detour. In God’s words: . . . Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt (Exodus 13:17b).

We have no evidence that God explained the detour to the generation He saved from the Philistines. Sometimes, God’s reasons for a detour can only be seen retrospect; they are hidden in real-time.

And we are left to trust.

Joseph intrigues me (Genesis 37-41). Daddy’s favorite, baby of the family, tattler, dreamer. As a teenager, he seems a little cocky or self-absorbed , sharing his own dreams of personal superiority with his older brothers, provoking their hatred of him.

Then Joseph suffers a long, painful string of injustices. His brothers betray him, fake his death, and sell him to some Egyptians. Potiphar’s wife takes a pass at him, and when he refuses, she accuses him of trying to force himself on her. In prison, unjustly charged with sexual misconduct, he helps out the Pharaoh’s butler and asks him to put in a good word for him, but Joseph is forgotten and spends another two years in prison. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could have felt more forgotten by God than Joseph.

But despite his feelings, forgotten is precisely what Joseph was not. Joseph was suddenly freed and rose to power in a miraculous way. In retrospect, we can see that Joseph was not forgotten, but forged–forged in the fire of suffering, made ready for the big role God had for him. God does not forget; He forges. What a difference one little letter makes.