Day 5

Whew . . . it's been a busy day! It was Freedom Sunday at church, then Formation Hour (where I get to teach little peeps to sing!), then our small group made lunch, ate lunch, and served lunch downtown to our friends without homes, home for pre-marital counseling with a lovely couple, quick stop by the neighbor's to catch up, downtown to Red Robin to celebrate our favorite 2 year old, then quick stop to Safeway to get a few groceries in the house before the week starts, groceries away and house picked up, kids ready for bed, and now a few minutes to write!

So an obvious focus today could be stewardship of time. But honestly, there's not one thing on that list that I didn't want to do and wasn't life-giving to me, so I'll focus on time at some other point. Rather, I find myself thinking of whether I steward the notion of being "fully-present" well. I can already tell you that this is an area I regularly fail in. People often just state that it's because I'm too busy, but I know people much more busy than me who are fully present and engaged every time you have a conversation with them. Real life humans. Jesus was an example of being full-present too, and He was one busy man! There are others I know who really aren't busy at all, and they too fail at being full-present, so busy-ness is not a very accurate indicator of whether one is fully-present or not.

There's a story in Matthew 17 that tells of a man who wants his son healed. He comes to Jesus after asking the disciples if they would do it. They couldn't. Having just come down with 3 of the disciples from a mountain and the "transfiguration" experience (you know, fulfilling prophesy and all), Jesus is bit frustrated with the disciples who weren't able to help this boy. Matthew 17:14-20 says,

14-16At the bottom of the mountain, they were met by a crowd of waiting people. As they approached, a man came out of the crowd and fell to his knees begging, "Master, have mercy on my son. He goes out of his mind and suffers terribly, falling into seizures. Frequently he is pitched into the fire, other times into the river. I brought him to your disciples, but they could do nothing for him."

17-18Jesus said, "What a generation! No sense of God! No focus to your lives! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring the boy here." He ordered the afflicting demon out—and it was out, gone. From that moment on the boy was well.

19When the disciples had Jesus off to themselves, they asked, "Why couldn't we throw it out?"

20"Because you're not yet taking God seriously," said Jesus. "The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, 'Move!' and it would move. There is nothing you wouldn't be able to tackle." (The Message)

I used The Message translation here because I liked that the word "focus" was used. Here the disciples have been living, traveling, and working with Jesus for three years. You'd think they would have learned a few things, but they're ineffective and not able to help a boy in desperate need of freedom. Jesus is telling the disciples that the reason why is that they lack faith . . . they're unfocused in their learning, study, and knowledge of God, and without focus you can't really believe something.

Have you ever taken a test without studying for it? Sometimes you get a decent grade and sometimes you fail, but until you get the test back, your faith in how you did waivers, because you know you didn't give careful attention to the information or process. On the flip side, when you carefully study for a test and devote yourself to focusing on the details for that test, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you'll receive a good grade because you have faith in the process of studying and in the knowledge that you possess.

If we don't take the time to focus ourselves, whether it be in relationships, the Word of God, study of our culture, our prayer life, our marriages, our family, non-believers, our jobs, or whatever else captures our heart, then we're not going to have the firm confidence and faith that we will be effective and have the skills necessary to do the task set before us. So whether busy or not, I still have to discipline myself to learn to focus in small things and big things so that I can be "fully-present" in them and have the faith to carry out my calling. When Jesus sends a person to me that needs Him, I don't want to hem and haw about "gee, I wonder what Jesus wants me to do here. I think I remember Him saying something about something, or maybe that was only for certain people . . . now I'm confused, and this guy looks really messed up!" No, I want the full assurance that I studied God's instructions hard, and have the faith that His power is in me so that I too can move mountains and be able to tackle anything He asks me to do. I have so far to go!

ps- when i write these, i sometimes ask james questions about where to find something or the meaning of some specific word. he mentions things like "it depends" and tells me i can "cross-reference" a particular passage. we get into debates on hebrew words when i just want clear-cut answers saying "the bible shouldn't be this hard to understand"! he goes on about how people want the bible to just be a yes/no answer book for them. i usually tune him out at this point and say something like "i'm not writing a freakin' sermon. that's your job." just wanted to let you in on how a pastor and his obedient wife discuss this stuff! he LOVES these conversations! and i'm humble enough to tell you that if i get a particular reference wrong or you'd like to discuss a certain theological point, my pastor would love to take you to coffee and talk to you about it! (-;