Numbering Our Days (The Clock Is Ticking Down)

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

- Psalm 90:12

In about one month, on my birthday, I will have been alive exactly 13,185 days (the leap years have been accounted for in that figure). This is a sobering number.

It's tempting to look back and say "what have I done with my time?" or "were the things I spent time on worth it?" These are natural questions to ask yourselves; particularly if you have something in your life you would like to change.

If you're anything like me you have that sort of "mental list" that is always sort of floating around in your mind (or the top drawer of your desk, or in your wallet) of things that you would like to get done and things that you "need" to get done.

What's pretty interesting is that even though I'm soon to be thirty-six and have started to get gray hairs and stiff knees, I can still find ways to put off doing the things that need to be done. I can still find ways to avoid the "wisdom" that David talks about in the Psalms.

Some distractions and diversions come in the form of good gifts from God like family and talents. Having kids, particularly having young kids is pretty all-consuming at first. Being involved in ministry is a blessing. But even these good things can be leaned on for reasons not to get to the things that need to be done.

On the other side of the coin, there are some folks who are so focused on life "to do lists" that they miss their children growing up, or miss out on quality friendships that could have been made if they had just taken their eyes off their itinerary for just a few minutes.

There are so many ways to be distracted from what is really important, from living wisely. It's pretty easy to forget to "number our days". John Lennon, of Beatles fame, said in a song that "life is what happens when you are making other plans".

Because it's easy to assume that the "future me" will get his or her act together. "Surely this thing won't go on like this indefinitely. I'm sure to spend more time with my kids or take care of that chronic financial matter or bad habit someday. There is no way that this will go on forever." But we all know that time passes more quickly than we ever realize, and soon that thing we should have addressed is now a huge, looming issue. Or suddenly that child is leaving the house and you never got to be that godly, intentional parent that you had meant to be.

When I look out my office window (in my wonderful "man cave" at home) at changing leaves I'm always shocked. "It was just the forth of July and 100 degrees outside! Why is there frost on my car windshield and freezing cold mornings! Where did the summer go!

The summer has gone, and life is going along with it. May you and I be people who "number our days" like the Lord tells us to, and thereby live the wise lives He is calling us to live.

So make that phone call, write that letter. Take that child out for a special date and tell them how much God loves them and that He has a plan for their lives. Write your wife a love note or call that old friend and catch up. Write that book or start that ministry opportunity that God has laid on your heart. Go do it!

The clock is ticking.

Making Eye Contact With God

Have you ever been walking down a busy sidewalk or through a crowded room and momentarily caught someone’s eye by accident? That brief second of eye contact is usually an odd thing to share with a complete stranger, and because of this we usually look away as quick as possible. There is something intimate about staring into someone’s eyes and when we accidentally do it both parties usually feel the awkwardness. Or sometimes, if you are tremendously unlucky and make eye contact with the wrong person, you might get beat up.

But if you are trying to connect with someone, looking them in the eye is a great place to start. I’m learning that if I really want my young daughters to hear what I’m saying I ask them to look me in the eye.

Studies show that making eye contact with young babies increased their sense of connection with their parents and leads to a better sense of well-being and less anxiety. (And by default, less crying, insecurity and separation panic when mom and dad have to leave the room for a second.)

It even works with pets. If you make eye contact with your cat at least once a day they are less likely to engage in attention getting behaviors like shredding your furniture or doing their business in odd areas of the house. Just a second of eye contact can save you that “kitty” smell in your house.

If the eyes are the “windows to the soul” (a phrase that has its origins in scripture) then it makes sense that staring straight into someone’s eyes creates an intimacy that can’t be matched any other way. And conversely, if someone never makes eye contact they are most often looked at in a suspect way. Retailers have a rule of thumb that if a suspicious customer will not make eye contact or even say hello to a salesman then they should be watched extra-carefully for shoplifting activities. 

I’ve been a Jesus follower for a good portion of my life, but sometimes the simplest things still elude me. I know that if I start my morning by making eye contact with God (reading His word, praying for just a few minutes) then things go immeasurably better for the rest of the day. But too often I start the day by reading something else (like the recap of the previous night’s NBA playoff game) and miss out on a vital moment making eye contact with God.

As we are talking more and more about “calling” at Oasis, the question probably comes up in your mind time after time: “how do you hear from God?”

It’s perhaps the most basic question of faith, but I think the answer starts with being intentional. Trying to hear from God is the best first step in actually hearing from God. Making “eye contact” daily helps me get to know my daughters and my wife better (and for them to get to know me better) and a little time with the Lord in a quiet space helps me get to know Him better.

The Psalms talk about this over and over. David says “early in the morning will I call out to thee”. He was known as “a man after God’s own heart” (not by any stretch a perfect man, but one who “knew” God) and its my guess that time spent meditating on God’s word (pretty much the theme of the Bible’s longest chapter, Psalm 119) and making eye contact with God helped him through the craziness of God’s calling on his life.

It’s the nuts and bolts stuff of faith (the kind of stuff I need to be reminded of time and time again) that lead to the deeper life with the Lord that I desire, and it’s a joy to be in a small group and a congregation where I am continually reminded of what is important. If I try and be a loan wolf and do the Christian life on my own, the only thing that suffers is my own walk with God. It’s just how I’m wired. As a writer I can get lost in my own thoughts for days and forget to make eye contact with the divine. Its good to get together with other believes to collectively try to hear God’s calling and to be encouraged to make the time to try to hear it individually.

So may we all seek to make eye contact with God daily and encourage each other to make contact as well.

That beats reading about a basketball game any day.

Thoughts From A Porch

Praying For More (Thoughts From A Porch)

Both the church I went to as a teenager and the camp I worked at had these great, old-fashioned porches. You know the kind, the ones that wrap around and have plenty of chairs for crowds to gather. These two porches frequently inspired great conversation whenever two or more people gathered on them.

We would talk about art and music and how they played into our faith. We would discuss lofty questions like "how many angels can dance on the head of the pin" (my friend Dave would say "millions and millions, angels are not spacialy challenged!") and the more serious questions about what God wanted us to do with our lives and what He was teaching us in that moment. This was quite honestly a magical time in my spiritual life, a time when spontaneous prayer was normal and good, deeply affecting conversation was the norm.

I sort of thought that life would always be like this, surrounded by conversation and the excess time to sit and trade stories with my friends.

My house has a great porch with a pretty great view, but it mostly serves as a storage facility for excess stuff, and a place for my cats to sack out in the sun on a fuzzy blanket.

Because the truth is that I don't have a lot of excess time right now for deep conversation. Whatever good talks I have with my wife or friends usually happens in the car on a trip somewhere. Whatever bandwidth I have in my brain is usually reserved for scheduling family events, paying bills and attempting to finish the book I'm writing.

Two things happened to me recently that have gotten me thinking of those porches and the spiritual life they represented to me.

The first was that a few weekends ago I actually went back to my old church and sat on that porch and remembered. The second was what we've been talking about in my life-group (I recommend highly finding one and plugging in) recently.

We always have a great time of prayer together, and if you hang out with the same folks long enough you will see people go through the cycles of life. There will be times when everything is falling apart and you need to seriously pray for someone's daily need to be met. You need to pray for physical healing for your brothers and sisters and all sorts of other important things.

But what we have been realizing is that you can get caught up in praying for the day to day stuff and forget the big picture of faith.

At the end of the book of Colossians Paul asks that the church he is writing to would "pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I'm in chains."

Hold the presses here. Paul is not asking for people to pray that he would get out of prison, but that the Lord would use the situation to open a door for the message of Jesus.

I don't know about you, but my request would be about the immediate thing; "pray that God gets me out of here!"

But there is something beyond the immediate need.

Here is where I think the two thoughts (talking about big picture stuff on the porch like "God's will" and small picture, everyday stuff like praying for a sick friend) collide. They are both important to remember, and equally important to pray for and dwell on. If my good friend asks me to pray for him or her because they are having a rough day, then it's important to God because He cares about rough days. But I also want to pray for my friend to understand how their lives weave into the fabric of what God is doing in their little corner of the world. I want to pray that they would understand how God has created them (what their "calling" in life is); what their gifts and talents can profit their world for the Lord and those around them. It's easy to pray "God, get them thought this day." It's tougher to remember to lift our eyes up and realize that that friend has a role to play in God's plan, and to pray that they would understand and see that.

I'm going back to that camp this summer, and I'm going to sit on that porch overlooking the lake and spend some quiet time praying for those who the Lord has placed in my life (my wife and two daughters, my lifegroup, the guy in the store in swapped funny stories with at the check out counter). I'm going to pray for the immediate needs and the big picture stuff too.

And then I think I'll go for a swim.