carpe diem

Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away.

– Psalm 39:4, NLT

 

Time: It is our greatest resource. We treat it as we do our money – we spend it, buy it, and borrow it – yet we cannot get more of it for all of our efforts. We have all been left wishing there were more hours in a day, more minutes on the clock, more moments spent with someone we love. How, then, are we to steward this most precious of commodities?

 

It begins with a prayer for perspective. David asks God to remind him just how fleeting life is. Why would he do such a thing? Most people avoid thoughts of death and the limitations of our time. Yet death and the realization of life’s brevity bring clarity. How many books, songs, and movies confirm this? Someone finds out they have only 6 months left to live and suddenly everything of significance comes into focus. All they previously deemed important is mere distraction and background noise. Such stories resonate with us because, deep within, we know they speak truth. The psalmist simply beat Hollywood to the punch on this plot by 3,000 years.

 

This is no morbid preoccupation with death; nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, David is asking God to help him live with purpose: “God, I want my life to count. I want to devote my days to things that really matter. Show me how much time I have so I don’t get caught up in short-term pursuits.” David recognized that it is foolishness to live as if we are immortal, expending everything on a life that is temporary and nothing on a life which lasts forever. Jim Elliot, a missionary who was killed at age 28 while carrying the Gospel to the native people of Ecuador, put it this way: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

 

The fact of the matter is that the greater our consciousness of our own mortality, the more attuned to eternity we become. We should not misconstrue this attitude for escapism; God does want us to forget about the mundane and unpleasant realities of life, or to abandon all thought of the here-and-now. Quite the opposite: He desires to impart meaning and context so we might live this life more fully. As Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10, NJK, emphasis mine). To borrow a phrase from The Message Bible, when we live our everyday, ordinary, sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life in the light of eternity, even the most routine endeavor takes on new meaning (Romans 12:1).

 

Consider Jesus. This is the man who possessed only 3 short years to complete the most monumental task in human history: reconciling God with a fallen creation. This is also a man who was poignantly aware of his mortality. Yet throughout the Gospels, we never see a picture of Jesus rushing around, worrying about keeping appointments or making people wait. He didn’t carry a Day-Timer or wear a watch. By all accounts he paid precious little attention to schedules or the time. Search for any form of the word “run” in the Gospels; you will never find it used to describe Jesus.

 

What you will find repeatedly is Jesus taking his time. He took time to hold and bless children, even after his disciples tried to run them off because he was “too busy.” He took time to commune and pray alone with his Father, despite the overwhelming pressures and endless needs of ministry. He took the time to walk everywhere instead of riding horseback, investing in the lives of his disciples through shared experience and quantity time – not just quality time. The portrait of Jesus shows a very deliberate and unhurried pace in spite of the incessant press of crowds and his looming death sentence. This is because Jesus had an eternal perspective; he wasn’t trapped in the moment. He knew his life had an end, but he also knew that it would continue on into eternity. So he considered each moment and the next and the one following, doing what was best in the long run.

 

We would be wise to take a lesson from this. Later in his prayer, David says, “We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing” (verse 6). Do not miss the irony here: We rush around because we believe we have so many important things to do, yet rushing is the very thing which robs our lives of meaning. The reality of death imparts a sense of urgency to our lives, but the reality of eternity tempers that urgency by showing us what is truly important.

 

None of us are promised tomorrow; all we have is this moment. Today is the day that God has made for us. Let us rejoice in it, be glad in it, and seize it.

faithfully reckless

The servant who received the five talents began to invest the money and earned five more. The servant with two talents also went to work and earned two more. But the servant who received one talent dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

– Matthew 25:16-18

 

In my coursework for business management, I learned two fundamental principles of investment. First, investment always involves risk. And supplementary to this, the greater that risk, the greater the potential return is. Matthew’s Gospel records the story of two very different sorts of investors and their unique approach to risk.

 

A nobleman was leaving the country. While away on business, he would entrust his servants with the daily operation of his estate. To each he endowed an amount commensurate with their ability, giving to one some $1.7 million, to another $690,000, and to a third $345,000. Upon his return, they would settle accounts.

 

The first two servants were proactive, investing, working, and earning. Each managed to double the original sum they were given. The third servant employed an altogether different methodology: He hoarded. Rather than risking the loss of his master’s funds on a business venture or in the markets, he simply buried it in a coffee can in the back yard.

 

In due time the master returned. Hearing of the successful investments of the first two servants, he lavished them with praise. “Well done!” he said. “You have proven yourself faithful in managing this limited amount, so I am confident you will succeed with much greater responsibilities. Come, let us celebrate together!”

 

But the third servant, the one who had been so cautious, received a decidedly different response. An analogous passage Luke’s Gospel tells us the master ‘roared’ at the servant. He was furious, calling him wicked and lazy. Unlike his peers, this man was not celebrated but berated, and was summarily dismissed from the master’s service.

 

This tale, told by Jesus and known as the Parable of the Talents, teaches us an essential truth about stewardship: Being “good and faithful” involves taking risks. Without risk, there can be no return – and Jesus expects a return on his investment. He has no interest in our playing it safe, for there is no expansion or multiplication in such halfhearted measures. Rather, Jesus asks us to put ourselves out there, in the places where faith is not an option but a requisite; not playing fast and loose, but taking calculated, God-dependent risks. We somehow feel that this is reckless, foolish even, but little could be further from truth. Following the Spirit’s guidance, responding to the nudges of God, utilizing the gifts we have been given – herein is wisdom.

 

We must unlearn our fear of failure because fear stands in direct opposition to faith. It was fear that motivated the inept servant, as he admitted to his master: “I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth and here it is” (verse 25). If we fail in our initial attempts, at least we do so in the service of God and in obedience to his Word. But more to the point, failure in the world’s eyes does not necessarily correlate to failure in God’s eyes. Consider Jesus. By any earthly standard, he was a dismal failure. One of his own disciples sold him out. His closest friend and right-hand man publicly disowned him. His own people rejected him. And ultimately, he was tried, condemned, beaten to a bloody pulp, and executed as a fraud, blasphemer, insurgent, and enemy of the state. None of this hints at success. Yet the very worst of it all – the public humiliation and death sentence – achieved the greatest triumph in human history: The reconciliation of our souls with God. Jesus is capable of redeeming even our failures, such as they are, and using them for his purposes. The only true failure is squandering what we are given by burying our talents.

 

Friends, may we learn to be fearless, to embrace risk with all of its possibility of failure, that we, too, might be deemed “good and faithful” in our service to Jesus.

treasure

“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do, says the Lord Almighty, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it! Let me prove it to you!”

– Malachi 3:10, NLT

 

Do you remember when you were a kid and someone dared you? It normally involved some sort of risk that, to a child, could be quite terrifying. But the hazard of being labeled a scaredy cat usually proved the less acceptable option, so you found your courage to perform the childish antic – eating a worm or some similar feat.

 

Let these childhood memories serve you well, because God dares us. In the writings of the Prophet Malachi, God tells his people to put his word to the test. This is the ancient equivalent of the modern “satisfaction guaranteed.” What is it, precisely, that the Almighty challenges us to do? He dares us to invest in his economy.

 

During this period, the people were ignoring God’s prescriptions for worship. The animals brought for sacrifice were blighted or diseased; the Temple was neglected and not properly maintained; the faithful were lax in funding the ecclesiastical system God had established. So God calls them to task. “If you don’t have the faith to take me at my word, then here is a risk-free trial. Bring a tenth of your income into my house to finance my work. Then watch as I throw open the floodgates of heaven to bless you.”

 

There is very real danger in the “prosperity gospel” which has become so popular in our consumer culture. But in the same breath, there is very real danger in becoming reactionary to it and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. To be sure, God is not some cosmic slot machine that we fill with quarters, expecting to hit the jackpot. Such a reading of Scripture misses the selfless sacrifice which is at the heart of the Gospel. And yet, the verses we find in Malachi are not atypical; time and again throughout the Bible we hear their theme echoed. Consider, for example, Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Luke:

 

If you give, you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use in giving – large or small – it will be used to measure what is given back to you. (Luke 6:38, NLT)

 

The parable of the talents, reaping what you sow, laying down your life to find it in the end – these are all applications of a law of the Kingdom economy: God blesses those who are faithful with what they have been given. In other words, by using what I have to serve God and advance the Gospel, I demonstrate that he can entrust me with his resources. “To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given” (Luke 19:26, NLT).

 

Friends, let us take God up on this dare. Let us stop living in fear and financial insecurity. Let us give to God our first and our best, with hearts full of faith and joy because God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7). And be assured of this: When we do, God will loose a torrent of blessings beyond our ability to contain them.