Everything I know about Life, I learned Training for the Freewheel - Part II

Continued from yesterday’s musings about training for endurance events, in this case my bike ride across the Great State of Oklahoma, specifically what you can learn for living successfully in an “endurance” sort of role.

KNOWING THE ROUTE AND BEING PREPARED:

When planning for a bike ride, there are some things you can count on. Look at the race route and you will see hills, newly paved roads versus old country lanes. You can’t just hope that those difficulties will not be there when you get to them. So train for hills. When plan out how far you will be going on a certain day, make allowance for the slower speed caused by big hills.

If your group is planning some days that are 80 miles long, don’t be surprised when they are actually that long! Ride some long rides, ration your strength on those days.

Likewise, in our work, we know there are seasons that will be more intense each year: budget time, board meetings, training events, whatever.  We shouldn’t be surprised by them.

PLAN FOR UNSCHEDULED THINGS:

The hills you can plan for.  But there are other factors you don’t know in advance:  Sometimes it will be raining. And sometimes you will get a flat tire. And unless you are in the Tour de France, where someone just sweeps in and switches your tire in 2 seconds, you will have to stop. And then there is

THE WIND:

The wind is what can so radically change an easy course into a hard one, without notice. Sometimes you are out riding and exalting in how fast you are going. Then you turn around to come home and realize the wind has been at your back and is now in your face!

It truly is a wild card, especially in Oklahoma, “where the wind comes sweeping down the plain”. They didn’t include that line in the song just because it rhymes nicely. It’s TRUE.

Yesterday, I was out for a ride with a friend and we chose to alter our course to cut across the wind, since the prevailing wind was one of those winds where you think you could actually WALK faster than biking. Unfortunately, in life, you can’t often change your course. And you can’t always assume you will have the wind at your back. Sometimes it is full in your face.

In life’s journey, the wind in your face represents the “opposition from sinful men” that causes you to grow “weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:3) Likewise, it is the spiritual opposition that we do not see but certainly feel.

I think we also can extend the metaphor to include the wind at our backs which is the strength of the Spirit and the prayers of the saints. We need those and are so often unaware of them when they are there pushing us along.

STOP IN THE SHADE

On the long rides, when the sun is beating down and sweat pouring down from under the sweatband into your eyes, you will need to stop to rest. These may be scheduled “gatorade, cookie and fruit stops” on an organized ride (compare with an organized  retreat) but also might be just an unscheduled stop under a nice shady tree for whatever snacks you have brought along.

A rider might make the mistake of hitting the 10-mile rest stop and thinking, “I’m doing fine and feel strong, I’ll just go on and hit the next one.” But eventually he will wear himself out sooner than those who stopped and got refueled.

I remember my first furlough working at our headquarters in Dallas for 3 months or so. They had a “spiritual emphasis week” and I didn’t feel free somehow to “not work” that week and so I skipped the retreat. What was I thinking?

CROSS-TRAINING, STRENGTHENING YOUR CORE

Cross-training has for some time been all the rage in sports. It means simply that if you are training for one sport, you should also do exercises from other disciplines to strengthen the muscles that are secondary for your sport. A runner might do some swimming, and a gymnast might run and lift weights. Why? Because those muscles provide strength and stability to the primary ones you are using.

You will hear a lot of talk these days about “strengthening your core”. Your CORE is made up of the abdominal muscles, hip muscles and lower back muscles that stabilize your spine, and keep you upright.

All this to say that for a cyclist, it’s not just about your legs!

I’ve been doing a lot of core exercise to strengthen my abs and lower back which will keep me from having a sore back on the ride and also help with balance. I’m also working on my arms and shoulders which take a lot of punishment holding on to handlebars.

So how does the metaphor extend to life? We obviously need to keep strong spiritual disciplines to endure in a stressful job. But ‘cross-training for life” would mean also staying disciplined in other areas: diet, regular exercise, adequate sleep, good relationships with friends and family. These things will give us the endurance to keep "stablized" when we really hit a rough patch. 

Ministry-wise, I think this would include being involved in some activities outside your main ministry and also working on developing spiritual gifts in areas that are not your primary one.

TOMORROW: Part III: Nutrition, Fuel, Hydration and stretching!

Everything I Know about Life I learned from Training for the Freewheel (part 1)

Many of you may know that I will be participating in the OKLAHOMA FREEWHEEL,
http://www.okfreewheel.com/, an organized and fully supported bike ride of about 1000 people, riding 492 miles from Durant, OK to the southern Oklahoma border and then north to Kansas. 8 days, 7 nights: June 11 – 18. If you live somewhere near the route (see the link), let me know and come out and give me a shout-out!

I have never really trained for anything, certainly nothing like this. Sure I go mountain bike riding in Mali 25 miles each Saturday and do some short mid-week things. In the past, I have done some shorter events: 30, 40 and even 60 miles, but the 60 miles about killed me as I had not trained for it.

The truth is that almost anyone can go out and do a 5k walk for charity as a “one-off”, without training. And your normal church-goer can go cross-culturally for a 2-week mission trip and come back exhausted but with their eyes wide open!

But I decided I needed to do some serious training if I am going to do 8 days of between 40 and 80 miles each day. And this has been part of my sabbatical fun – no, discipline. And it has given me lots of food for thought for what it takes to endure long-term in high-stress, mission work, ministry and probably the dog-eat-dog corporate world, too. Hopefully some of this will be applicable to you. And hopefully my training will enable me to finish the Freewheel without choking.

It’s not for nothing that Paul used the “running a race” metaphor three different times in his epistles: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Acts 20:24, Hebrews 12:1-3. One has to wonder if he was a runner or at least someone who watched the games on the satellite dish in his tent.

I Corinthians 9:24-25
Do you not know that in a race, all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

[Okay, in my case, we just get a t-shirt and bragging rights.]

:26-27 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

This training is serious and necessary if we want to finish the race and not be disqualified. I’ve been musing on this quite a bit while riding. This will be a 2 or 3-part post.

THE PRIZE:
Paul says we should fix our eyes on the prize and also on that really fast guy who is miles ahead of us and has ridden the course before us: Jesus.
We should also keep in mind that at the end of each day’s ride, there is a hot meal and fellowship, and there is a BIG party at the final destination, no matter when you get there.

EQUIPMENT – Anyone can use old sneakers for a 5k walk. And anyone can take a used Wal-Mart bike and finish a 10-mile ride. But not even Lance Armstrong could do well in the Tour de France with that same bike. In fact, he would most certainly refuse to ride it.
For my ride, I have invested quite a bit in cycling shoes and some upgrades to my bike, including a full tune up. And it really helps, especially to be able to shift into all the gears!
On the mission field, I have seen new people arrive and say idealistically, “We don’t need a vehicle. We’ll just take the bush taxi back and forth to the village”. That usually lasts for a month or so, and then they realize they need a vehicle if they want to get anything done. Similarly, westerners can survive living in a Malian hut for a short while, but if they want to endure in the village setting, they will need to build some sort of house with some lights, a fan, a sit-down toilet, etc. In Bamako, we have air-conditioners in our offices and many have them in their homes. A luxury? Not really when it is  90F-110F most of the year. 

The lesson: whatever the tools of your trade are, don’t skimp on them: computers, software, cars, training courses. Know what you need and don’t short-change yourself.

DILIGENCE: The most important part of training for the long haul is consistency and discipline. Get out there and train daily. In life, we need to stay in the Word and don’t just count on Sunday church to tide you over. Plan for how you are going to grow yourself spiritually.

TAKE A REST DAY: you need to train daily but they say you shouldn’t train every day with no break or you will tear your body down. Sabbath rest is necessary!

COMPANIONSHIP:  There is much to be said for training in a group. You can keep each other accountable and just having someone out there a bit faster than you will keep you going on at pace. 
This is one area where I am lacking in during this training time. I do not have any cycling buddies to train with on this continent.
It’s important that the people you are fellowshipping with and who accompany you on the journey God puts you on have similar goals and destination. It wouldn’t help me to train with a runner as we would go at different speeds. Or to train with someone only wanting to ride a few miles.
I suppose ENCOURAGEMENT fits here. Paul talks in Hebrews 12 about the “great cloud of witnesses” - people cheering us on, even if only virtually via a “like” on FB when I say, “I rode 50 miles today to Tecumseh and back”.

Coming in Part II: Knowing the route, Being prepared, Wind, Opposition and more.
Keep Training for your race!

The God who is Embarrassingly Messy and Undignified

1 John 3:1 says “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!"

Not only does God adopt us as his kids, but he lavishes his love on us. God has been really speaking to me about this outlandish love he has for all of us. “Lavish” – that isn’t just a birthday party your folks throw for you with a clown and a pony, but one at Disneyworld, with Mickey passing out balloons, all the Princesses there, and Justin Bieber on hand for entertainment. 

It’s the sort of love that embarrasses you when you see others displaying it in public. Brennan Manning (Souvenirs of Solitude, p. 31) says that God is so crazy in love with us that he “can scarcely bear to be without us.” I wonder if He is not like a teenager in love, who sends SMS’s to his beloved every few minutes – but we don’t get them because we haven’t paid for the text package, or have disabled “Holy Spirit tweets” or are just too busy to listen.

You might think I am exaggerating. Look at the scandalous things that God does – things that if he did today, we might question his sanity, or judgment or dedication to the overall plan.

1. Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. They certainly were taken back by this. Here is the CEO stooping to wash his servants’ feet! In Mali, I am “Monsieur le Directeur” and can hardly carry my own suitcase without causing scandal among our staff, as it is so unfitting for me to do that. What Jesus does for his disciples is SCANDOULOUS.

2. Brennan Manning gives the example of the Woman Caught in Adultery. Jesus absolves her sins BEFORE SHE EVEN ASKS and then sends her on her way. He doesn’t ask her a lot of questions to make sure she understands the gospel, or get her checked into a half-way house, or make her jump through hoops.  If we were with him, we’d be looking for some sort of assurances this woman would not be out on the streets again tonight, but he just lets her go, with the injunction to “go and sin no more.” As if!

“Why doesn’t this God of ours display some taste and discretion in dealing with us?” (Manning, p. 33) His love isn’t dignified. It’s messy.

3. Then there is the Parable of the Prodigal Son/Loving Father (Luke 15). Again, we have a person of authority, an elderly father, dropping everything and running across the fields to his son, the one who totally dissed him. Does he even listen to the son’s apology? Nope, again there are really no hoops to jump through.
“You’re back. I’ve missed you like mad. Here are the keys to the mansion, an executive VP position in the company, a new Ipad and a Lexus.  Let’s Party.”
Now if it were me, I’d want the son to prove he was serious, let him work his way back up in the family enterprise, maybe put him back in his old job for a while.
But NOT GOD.

4. God announces his son's birth, not in the Coliseum in Rome, but to a bunch of outcasts: shepherds in Podunk, Judea.

5. He chooses his closest companions – not from the elite soldiers, or learned people or skilled artisans - but from fishermen and tax collectors and uneducated folks.

6. Is this only a New Testament thing? No, from Day One, we have God being messy. He kills animals to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness and shame. Killing animals is messy and had to REALLY hurt God as these were the first creatures EVER to lose their lives.

7. The OT God does all sorts of “coloring outside the lines” by doing things like picking the younger son to bless: Jacob, not Esau.

8. Then there is David, who falls so royally, by committing adultery and then killing his lover’s husband. Okay, we might be up for God forgiving this person if they were really, really sorry. (He was). But certainly he should be removed from ministry and his bestselling Psalm CDs pulled from the Christian bookstores. “Let’s take him out of power circles. He can come to church and all but not have any real future role.”
Not with God. David stays on as King, and is called a man after God’s own heart. He even gets “a lasting dynasty” which includes Jesus.

9. Finally, there is Rahab, the prostitute. I was reading this story yesterday in Joshua 2.  What’s up with this story? How did the spies end up at HER house, which was after all, a house of prostitution? Was this their cover? The king assumed they were her clients. Certainly would not look good in the next newsletter.

Obviously, God’s sovereignty was at work to protect the spies. But if God is being sovereign, why not choose a less messy way, involving someone respectable and something more dignified than a prostitute?

All I can figure is that God’s plan also included rehabilitation for Rahab who recognizes God for God in all this and ends up with a place of honor in society, a lasting place in history and a lineage that includes: Boaz, David, and Jesus.

If someone with a track record like God was sitting on your church’s elder board or the board of your non-profit or company, I imagine most of you would be looking for a way to replace him with someone more sensible and dignified. The good news is that He is the Chairman of the Board and has a lifetime post and can override our votes. 
This love that we are so stingy in doling out only to respectable folks who meet certain criteria for advancing our ends, well, our Chairman is crazy and messy and undignified and will LAVISH that love on you and me and everyone else, regardless of how it looks.

And aren't you glad he does?

"Idolatry" by any other name.

I’m still reading Eugene Peterson’s “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places” (p 116-129) where he has the audacity to name workaholism as “idolatry”.

“Without Sabbath. . .the workplace is soon emptied of any sense of the presence of God and the work becomes an end in itself, …a breeding ground for idols” as we “reduce work to the dimensions of ego and control.” p. 116

The wonder that is associated with creation and resurrection and worship has no place in the world of work, even in a Christian organization if we are not careful. 

Gradually the sense of wonder is squeezed out of us, as we gain competence and mastery over ourselves. This greatest in the workplace where information and competence are key values. (p. 122)
KSA’s anyone? (Knowledge, skills, attitudes). It’s time to prepare the report on Key Indicators of Progress to our Ends. Where are our 3-year goals? Sure, we pray at the meetings where we put those things together, but . . . 

Peterson emphasizes that at work, there is a subtle shift from the primacy of God and his work in our lives to the primacy of our work for God. We no longer worship God but enlist Him to assist us in “the work”. This is idolatry: using God instead of worshipping Him (p. 124)

Recently I have been getting feedback from close friends and colleagues, and people keep coming back to the fact that I am competent at what I do.

•“You are above all, competent, again. Your high ‘C’ (conscientious nature) kicking in. You wouldn’t know who you are if you weren’t competent.”
•“We were just saying the other day that Tim can get more done in one day than most of us can in a week.”

Pluh-ease, people, il ne faut pas exagérer.  But seriously, if you are highly competent, then you don’t need to depend on God. Ouch!

What is the cure for workplace idolatry? Peterson says it is Sabbath keeping – it provides a detachment from the workplace, from the world’s way of doing things, from our compulsion to take things into our own hands. Or as Petersen puts it ‘a weekly housecleaning’ that allows us to enter the week “uncluttered with idols”. p. 128.

I was thinking on all this and reviewing memory verses and came across this one:
2 Corinthians 3:3-6 Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, bur our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant - not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.”

Wait a minute! This is PAUL we are talking about here. And he claims not to be competent. Wasn't he a Pharisee trained under Gamaliel at his rabbinical school. He had clout in the Jewish scene before his conversion. He was a gifted writer for sure. Perhaps not so convincing a speaker in person, as he mentions in one of his letters, but still he had to have had human competencies.

Still he plays these down and opts for competence that comes from God. And that makes all the difference: human competence is compared to the letter of the law and it KILLS.

Godly competence comes from the Spirit and gives LIFE presumably to those ministered to, but also to the one serving as a conduit.

Lord, help us to slay our workplace idols and live in your competence.

Be Still, My soul (a poem)

It's been a long while since I wrote a poem. I am working on journaling as a way to grow spiritually, interact with ideas, and "craft my soul". This incorporates ideas from a sermon I listened to on Ecclesiastes 4:5-6 (that mentioned Matthew 3:16), and a devotional reading that referenced Psalm 23.

 

Be Still, My Soul

Be still, my soul.

Let my self with its need for attention, distraction and connectedness

Melt into the background

Like hard wax becoming molten in the presence of your flame.

Be still, my soul,

Relax the hand that grasps

Into an open hand

From which my empty trinkets can be taken

And into which blessings dropped easily.

Be still, my soul.

Defrag my mind.

Untether me from the machine,

Unsynch me from calendars and contacts

Log me off of status updates seeking friends’ likes.

Be still, my soul.

Let me rest like Jesus

With whom You were ‘well-pleased’ before his ministry started,

Who acted out of that acceptance rather than trying to earn it,

Who was content to do ONLY what You had showed Him to do,

Not taking on himself everything that others had left undone.

Open up, hand!

Breathe out self’s preoccupations -

Breathe in Spirit’s life.

Safe pastures,

Still waters,

HE restores my soul.

Be still, my soul

Can’t grab the living water

Or quantify it, test its purity.

Let it flow over my open hand, where it will.

Be still, beside still waters.

Unexpected Tears

Mid-way during my time in Kansas City, I went to see "Soul Surfer" which is a good, christian movie with some quality actors: Helen Hunt and Dennis Quaid. I am not so macho that I can't admit that I sometimes cry at movies, but in this particular case, I cried through a good deal of the movie, so much so that I was glad that it was 4 pm and there was only 2 other people in the theater.

The odd thing is that I have found myself crying a LOT since I began the sabbatical - reading books, listening to songs, in church, during dramas at conference last week, during other movies, but thankfully not during "Thor" last week, as that would have totally messed up the cool 3D effects. 

I've been trying to figure that out - the crying part. Last fall, I read Dan Allender's book "Sabbath" and he says that noise in our lives 

"masks a far greater cacophony that will seldom be heard until we choose silence. The problem is the underlying noise is louder than the masking sounds we use to cover what we don’t want to hear.” 

If we are silent, we are forced to deal with things, to being deeply disturbed. When we are quiet we can confront and hear the voice of  loss - dealing with grief that will surface when we are silent. A grief we fell too impoverished to invite in as a guest, so we send it away as an unwanted stranger. We have to turn up the volume on Loss/Grief, or it will keep calling us back and not allow joy.

Apparently when Dan Allendar went on his sabbatical, a friend asked him, “Are you ready for what will come?” True to form, he found himself awakening from deep sleep weeping, but was unaware why.

He says that "grief is like vomiting. It exhausts, nauseates, and relieves. Empties us, weakens us, but prepares us for food again." Or as Jesus puts it : "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Back to Soul Surfer: Why did it affect me so? This movie started out with them singing "Blessed Be Your Name" (Matt Redman) which we sing ALL the time in Mali. There is a reason we sing it a lot as it deals with praising God when things don't seem to be going the way we think they should be:

"You give and take away. . . . When the darkness closes in, still I will say. . Blessed Be Your Name". 

I think I decided that is why the movie resonated so much with me. The surfer girl had a lot of promise and then had that taken away inexplicably and then dealt with the loss.  The things that could have been were shattered, and then they were redeemed, remade into something better.

And that made sense set against the relief of so many things in Mali and Ivory Coast: senseless court cases, civil unrest, threats of terrorists, sickness and medevacs of key people. So much that might have been, that was thwarted for reasons I can not now see. So many cases also where we were forced to rely on God instead of our own capacities. And being quiet has allowed me to grieve those things.

In this time of Sabbatical and unexpected tears, God has given me this verse, which has been meaningful:

You keep track of my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8

An atheist friend of mine recently lead me to this verse:

 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things. Isaiah 45:7 (The french says "prosperity and adversity")

God is sovereign even when adversity and disaster come our way. 

Last week's sermon by Harold Bullock was on Celebrating the Tapestry of Life. When looking at a tapestry, you can not see the pattern that is being woven from the back. It is not clear until it is done and you flip it over. You need those dark threads to provide contrast.  Harold closed with: "I can't see the pattern in the Tapestry, but i know the weaver."

Pray with me as I am about to head off to the lake for a month. This will be a time for silence. Pray that I can still my heart and sit silently.

Let's Dance! (A Psalm of David ....Bowie??)

Over the past 2 weeks I have driven 24 hours, spread out over 5 days. That's a lot of time in the car and I have been listening to sermon podcasts but also a lot of music piped over the speakers from my phone.

Part of Sabbatical for me has been just being open for God to speak in unexpected ways, ears to the ground, eyes open in wonder. Eugene Peterson talks about cultivating wonder: "surprise, puzzlement, astonishment - GOD at work. and right here - in Jesus, in you, in me!" I would add: noticing God's creative image in those around me, joy at being alive, wonder at God's love lavished on me. . .

So anyway, I am driving along somewhere between Austin and the brown nothingness of Midland that makes the desert in Gao, Mali, look like a garden paradise, and I come across the David Bowie 80's classic "Let's Dance." I actually had this as my ringtone fairly recently because it just has such an awesome groove.

But the more I listened, I began to hear it as a song, a psalm perhaps, with God singing in joy and love over us and inviting us to join in. Wonder, in odd places. I doubt that is how David Bowie intended it so with apologies to him:

Let's Dance
Let's dance put on your red shoes and dance the blues

 Like most psalms, we start out with "the blues" - hard times. But there is intentionality to find joy (red shoes) and dance in spite of the blues.

Let's dance to the song
they're playin' on the radio

 God meets us where we are - with the song that is already playing on the radio.

Let's sway
while color lights up your face
Let's sway
sway through the crowd to an empty space

God invites us away to an empty space, alone with Him.

(Our response to God in submission and trust:)

If you say run, I'll run with you
If you say hide, we'll hide

 (God's declaration of overflowing love for us):

Because my love for you
Would break my heart in two
If you should fall
Into my arms
And tremble like a flower

This last bit reminds me of Rich Mullin's line "Hold me, Jesus, cause I'm shaking like a leaf".

Let's dance for fear
your grace should fall
Let's dance for fear tonight is all ...

Let's dance put on your red shoes
and dance the blues

Let's dance to the song
they're playin' on the radio

Let's dance, Let's dance, Let's DANCE!

--------------------------
Okay, sorry to anyone for whom I have ruined this most excellent song. I had doubts about posting this at all, but then last night I was reading the reading on Sacred Space devotional online and found this reflection of Jesus coming alongside us, as he did on the Emmaus road with downcast disciples:

Yet all at once there is someone, a seeming stranger, alongside … and what a change then takes place! And can it be the same with me, as I travel on my way, downcast and lifeless? Someone always alongside, who never gives up on me? Perhaps even he is my partner on what might be called ‘my dancing day’ – for, crazy as it may sound, he seems to dance, dance before me, so I find myself alive once more, and with vibrant movement coming back into my limbs. ‘He dances so that you may dance. He shows you what beauty is, his body awakens yours. He’s there to be your partner and everyone’s; sometimes you’ll see him opposite you, sometimes not … He gives you the fusion of his mind and imagination and flesh – his glorious body’ (Rowan Williams, Open to Judgement, p. 74).

 And then there is this verse, which is slightly more Baptist because God is just singing over us, not dancing :-)

Zephaniah 3:17 For the Lord your God is living among you.
He is a mighty savior.
He will take delight in you with gladness.
With his love, he will calm all your fears.
He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

Eternity, planted in our hearts

Eternity
This one has been rumbling around in my head for a while, beginning with my wrestling with Sabbath issues last fall (see my Sabbath sermon presentation.) where I learned that our Sabbath rest is just practice for eternity - a time to nourish the seed of eternity in our souls. (cf. Abraham Heschel's book "Sabbath")

And like so many things during this season of sabbatical, God just keeps weaving this theme in and out of whatever I read or listen to.

Thoreau in "Walden"

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars.

and elsewhere in Walden:

 As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.(Thoreau)

"Quiet desperation" - that sounds a lot like the Teacher in Ecclesiastes who says that "Everything is Meaningless"
The word "meaningless" is from the Hebrew Hevel = vapor, breath. In a Rob Bell sermon on Ecclesiastes, he says that we can try our best to manage the vapor in our lives. Normal wisdom literature tells you that if you do wise things, you will succeed. And those who do foolish things will fail. But in Ecclesiastes, the Teacher says none of it matters. The rules that you thought worked before, the way you were working before, they do not work. It is all "vapor". At least that is true for all that is "under the sun", e.g. created by God or created by us.

The counter balance to this is "eternity" which shows up in Ecclesiastes 3:11

Yet God has made everything beautiful in its own time.He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.

In part 2 of the Ecclesiastes sermon series, Shane Hipps says that this experience of eternity is independent of time. We all experience time dragging out (waiting for a package to arrive or in line at the airport) or speeding up when we are fully engaged in an activity we enjoy. When time "speeds up", we experience joy and peace.

How do we get to this point of eternity? We get there by "seeking first the kingdom of God", entering fully into the current moment with Jesus.

Everything else -past, future, mourning, dancing, gathering and throwing away - is transitory, vapor. We can do "vapor management" to try to control all those things, but when we get tired of playing "musical chairs" we can return to this place - this eternity in our hearts" with the help of the master. Just don't forget where the chair is when the song ends. Ask the Master to help you find it! (Musical chairs metaphor: Shain Hipps)

Peterson's book "Christ plays in 10,000 places" also touches on this (p. 108ff).

"How do we live so that the wonder and astonishment that so often comes to us unbidden and spontaneously isn't dissipated in trivial pursuits?" He says we need a focal practice which "focuses on eternity in a culture that is increasingly depersonalized and alarmingly fragmented". That practice is Sabbath keeping. 

"Sabbath creates a weekly bastion against the commodification of time, against reducing time to money, reducing tiem to what we can get out of it, against leaving no time for God or beauty or anything that can not be used or purchased. It is a defense against the hurry that desecrates time."Peterson, p. 111.

 I guess for me, this boils down to making time to nurture the seed of eternity in my heart, the presence of God, the kingdom of God, abundant life. 


At the Christian Leadership Alliance Conference last week, I went to a seminar on building a "Personal Rule of Life" by Steve Macchia (Gordon Conwell Seminary). The PRoL is

a holistic description of the Spirit-empowered rhythms and relationships that create, redeem, sustain, and transform the life God invites you to humbly fulfill for Christ’s glory.

To create a Personal Rule of Life you look prayerfully at your gifts, role, call, vision, mission, desires and then figure out
the "Rhythms and relationships" you want to to focus on for this season in your life: particular use of your time (spiritually), talent (missionally), temple (physically), treasure (financially), trust (relationally) in each major quadrant of life.
then  you map out activities and limitations for each day, week, month, season, year each of these areas.

Anyway, i am looking forward to having time to process this when part 3 of my sabbatical resumes in May 12.