Care of Your Time

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

John Wesley, the father of the Methodist movement back in the 1700s, believed that the first rule for holy living is care of your time. A Christian must take great care, must be very intentional, in how she spends her time, because the things you give your time and attention to form you. But I think Wesley’s rule could perhaps use an update for the 21^st century. In a world of omnipresent electronic media, “care of your time” often just means “care of your screen time.”

Think of all the time you spend in front of screens during the day—besides the hours you put in for work or school:

You turn on cable news when you get home and leave it on in the background all evening.

You scroll social media first thing in the morning, while you’re eating, before bed, or in between chores or tasks, looking at folks’ vacation pictures and laughing at their memes.

You peruse the news or opinions from your preferred outlets or newsletters.

You window shop on Amazon, eBay, and Etsy, or you place a grocery order through the Walmart app.

You login to Netflix or HBO Max after dinner to jump back into your latest TV binge.

You open Twitter to find out what we’re indignant about today or join in the rant of the hour.

You rush home from church to catch the Saints game or start the morning with College GameDay before the big game Saturday night.

Really, how much time do you get without any screens or media trying to grab your attention? How much actual peace and quiet is there in your day?

There’s a verse from Romans I think about often that says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (12:2) Do not be conformed, but be transformed.

The things we give our time and attention to will form us—whether that’s a steady stream of media conforming us to this world, or the powerful presence of God’s Spirit transforming us. One way or another, you’re going to be formed, but, with a little care of your time, you can be strategic about who or what is forming you.

Step one towards “care of your time,” may simply be paying attention. Paying attention increases awareness, and awareness facilitates intentional change. Maybe start asking yourself some questions like these:

• Have you noticed how much screen time you’re getting every day? Do you have a way of keeping track (like the Screen Time feature on an iPhone)?
• Are you being purposeful when you turn on the TV or pick up your phone—or are you doing it out of sheer habit?
• What gets put off or neglected in your schedule (or in your relationships!) because of time carelessly lost to electronic media?
• Are you as consistent in daily spiritual practices as you are in daily media consumption? If not, is there some screen time you can repurpose for seeking God’s Spirit and transformation?

The End of Division

I’ve been sharing, the last couple of weeks, about how I see the story of the Bible as the story of God repairing everything that was broken in the Garden of Eden. And I’ve talked some about how I see Jesus fitting into that story, but I want to mention one other, essential character in God’s plans: the Holy Spirit.

Like with Jesus, there are so many ways you could describe the Spirit’s role in God’s work to heal the world from the wounds of Eden. But I want to focus on one other story from Genesis that you’ve probably heard before, the Tower of Babel.

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words… And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” (11:1, 3-4)

Babel, though it’s a little later in the narrative, is another example of the brokenness brought on by the first couple in the garden. After all, the serpent first tricked Eve with the promise “you will be like God” (3:5), and now we have men and women trying to move in to heaven, making their home in the very dwelling of God.

The consequence, famously, is that “the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.” (11:9) Now, all the people were divided, by language and by geography.

Fast forward to the book of Acts in the New Testament. Jesus has ascended back to heaven, and the believers are waiting in Jerusalem for the arrival of the Holy Spirit. Then, in a roar of wind and the glow of “tongues of fire,” the Spirit arrives—and the disciples begin to speak.

At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other. (2:5-12)

What does this mean?

It means that the Holy Spirit is undoing the consequences of Babel. God’s repairing the devastation of Eden.

A scattered people are gathered together. Languages once confused by God are now made clear by the Spirit of the same God. The barriers of geography and communication that sin necessitated no longer need divide us, because God is making humanity like new again, freed from Sin’s power over our lives. We may still succumb to its siren song at times, but we are no longer Sin’s slaves—the Spirit has set us free. (Rom 8:2)

Seeing the effects of Babel rolled back reminds me that everything broken will be repaired. There’s no hurt or loss from sin you can point to that Jesus and his Spirit are not working to heal and restore. Every last trace of Sin’s dominion over us and over this world will be wiped away. Everything, Revelation promises, will be made new. (21:5)

Even our broken relationships and divisions.

You can listen to today's devotional here:

Unashamed

Some of the consequences of Adam and Eve’s actions in the story of the Garden of Eden are pretty well-known: sin entered the world (see Romans 5:12); death entered the world (Gen 2:17, 3:19); the image of God in humanity was shattered—until Christ came and perfectly mirrored God the Father again.

But one of the other consequences of tasting that forbidden fruit doesn’t seem to get as much attention. After Adam and Eve are deceived by the serpent and disobey the Lord, Genesis says, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” (2:7) Moments later, the couple hears the familiar footfall of God walking in the garden, and they hide from him behind the trees.

But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” (3:9-10)

Before the Fall, Genesis says "the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed." (2:25) But, because of Eve and Adam’s disobedience, fear and shame enter the story of the world. They had always been naked, but they’d never felt the need to hide their nakedness before. They had never worried that someone might see their bodies. That shame and that fear only set in once their minds and hearts have been infected by Sin’s power.

Did you know that shame about our bodies was never God’s intention for us?

The kinds of feelings and fears that we hear about leading kids and teenagers into depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and even suicidal thoughts—those were invented by that serpent from Hell. That’s not what God wanted for us.

But, remember, the story of the Bible is the story of God’s work to repair everything that was broken in the Garden of Eden. And this bit of our brokenness is no exception.

In the book of 1 John in the New Testament, we read, “now, little children, remain in relationship to Jesus, so that when he appears we can have confidence and not be ashamed in front of him when he comes.” (2:28) Where once we hid from him in fear and shame, God has orchestrated a new possibility: a day when we can all be confident and unashamed when he appears. Those feelings and fears will be erased forever.

In Genesis the Lord covered the first couple's shame with animal skins (3:21)—because it would take a little longer before he could clothe us in life and love (2 Cor 5:4 and Col 3:14). In time, though, the Son of God died, naked on a piece of lumber, for that couple who hid their nakedness behind the trees in the garden, afraid of the God approaching. He died, so that one day we could all stand, without shame, when we see our Lord approaching.

He died to set us free from fear and set us free from shame.

Listen to this week's devotional right here!

Escalate Grace

Last week I shared how, to me, the story of the Bible is the story of God’s work to repair everything that was broken in the Garden of Eden.

So how does Jesus fit in to that story?

There are a few ways you could answer that. I’ll just share one today.

Jesus is God’s way of rebooting humanity. Restoring us to the factory settings, you might say. Because Jesus is what we were supposed to be. Human beings were created in the image of God (Gen 1:27), but that image was defaced by sin. Then Jesus shows up, and he is the image of God (Col 1:15). He shows us the life we were created for—and we’re told that, with the help of his Spirit, we can start to recapture that image ourselves (Rom 8:29).

In Genesis 4, you get a neat example of how Jesus flips our broken humanity on its head. Genesis chapter 4 opens with the famous story of Cain murdering his brother, Abel. But there’s another, much less famous story later in the chapter: the story of Cain’s great-great-great-grandson, Lamech. We don’t learn much about him. He’s the son of Methushael (I’m sure you remember Methushael), and he has two wives. Beyond that, there are only two verses about Lamech:

        Lamech said to his wives,

“Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
    wives of Lamech, hear my words.
I have killed a man for wounding me,
    a young man for injuring me.
If Cain is avenged seven times,
    then Lamech seventy-seven times.” (4:23-24)

After Cain killed his brother, the Lord put a mark on him and warned that “I will give a sevenfold punishment” to anyone who kills Cain. (4:15) Now Lamech brags that a sevenfold vengeance is nothing­—he’ll exact a seventy-sevenfold vengeance against any assailants. The Lord was attempting to deter retaliation against the first murderer, but Lamech took that as an invitation to escalate vindictiveness and retaliation.

Now compare that to a familiar story about Jesus: Peter asks him, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus’s response? “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matt 18:21-22)

I was reading Genesis recently and noticed, for the first time, how Jesus’s teaching echoes but transforms Lamech’s threat. Instead of escalating vindictiveness and retaliation, Jesus is escalating forgiveness and grace.

He did it because that—not Lamech’s reaction, but Jesus’s way—is what human beings were created for. Lamech is only one chapter removed from the Garden of Eden, and yet, already, the image of God has been so thoroughly demolished in humanity. But Jesus picks up those broken pieces and makes something beautiful, showing us, again, who we were made to be, what life is really all about, and what our words and actions are for.

They’re for escalating grace.

What challenges you the most about the way Jesus lived on earth?

What's one thing you could do differently this week to make your life a little more of an image of God to someone around you? Be specific.

You can listen to this week's devotional right here:

Why Eden Matters

A married couple. A fruit tree. A snake.

We all know the tale of the forbidden fruit in the garden—it’s one of the most famous scenes in the Bible. It’s also a story I find myself coming back to again and again, because it is one of the two defining moments in the story of the world that scripture’s telling. The first defining moment comes at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden. The second comes at a tree on Calvary outside of Jerusalem.

Why is Eden so important to the story the Bible tells?

It’s a crossroads: the trajectory of the world takes a sharp turn when that fruit’s plucked from its branch.

In Genesis 1 and 2 we hear about the creation of a world that’s very good (1:31). A world of blessing and abundance (1:22, 28). A world of life (2:9) and companionship (2:18), where death is hypothetical (2:17) and shame is unheard of (2:25). That is the Lord’s desire for the world.

But in chapter 3, everything changes. Because a serpent said “you can be like God,” and a fruit looked “good for food… a delight to the eyes” (3:5-6), Eve and Adam broke the world. They rejected God’s intentions for them, and the consequences were curses (3:14, 17) and toil (3:17-19), blame (3:12-13) and enmity (3:15), shame (3:7), fear (3:10), and death (3:19)—every good thing in the story of creation is unraveled.

Genesis chapters 1 and 2 were written to answer the question, Where did we come from? Do you want to know why the earth is covered in oceans, where bluebirds and jaguars, or family and love come from? There’s a story for that.

Genesis chapter 3 was written to answer the question, Why is the world the way it is? Do you want to know why people lie to each other, or where cancer and stillbirths and tears come from? Well, there’s a story for that, too.

This turning point in the story of the world tells us two things about our lives in the world today, which I think are absolutely essential.

First, it tells us about life’s hurts. Grief, betrayal, pain—none of that is God’s desire for the world. We have a picture of the way the world ought to be, and it doesn’t include any of that. The things that hurt so much are consequences of sin, the marks of brokenness.

Second, not only does this moment set the world on a new trajectory, but it also sets God’s trajectory for the rest of scripture. We’re three chapters in, with 1,186 to go, and the story from here on out tells of God’s efforts to rescue the world. Abraham and Sarah, Moses, David, Mary, Jesus—the whole Bible is about God working with men and women to undo the damage done by the first man and woman. The Lord still desires a world of blessing, abundance, life, and companionship. That’s never changed.

The Bible is not just a book about men and women heading to Hell who need forgiveness. The Bible is a book about a world that’s been broken and needs to be healed and made new.

And about a Creator who's determined to do just that. No matter how long it takes. No matter what the cost.

You can also listen to the devotional right here!