"The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry!"

Almost everyone that I meet these days complains of being too busy.  

After 35 years of incarceration in Shawshank Prison, Brooks Hatlen is released on probation and, on his first day as a free man, is nearly run down by a motor car - (something which hadn't been invented before he was imprisoned).  "The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry" - he writes to his buddies still on the inside.

It's great to be busy with the right stuff - but when things swing out of control it can be no laughing matter.  Just today I chatted to an engineer friend of mine who works in one of our biggest shopping centres.  He's been sick with the flu for nearly 3 weeks and working insanely late hours on top of that - so much so in fact that he's never home in time to tuck in the kids.  When it comes to rest and recuperation, his weekends don't even come close to touching sides.  

On Thursday, I had a whirlwind catch-up with a mate who was leaving that evening for 6 days holiday in Cape Town.  He reckoned he'd be chained to his laptop for at least three of those.  "Why?" I asked.  Turns out his team has been stripped down to the bone and the company he works for won't staff up.  So it's nose to the grindstone for him it would seem - with very little light at the end of the tunnel.

Work is a funny thing - (OK, not so funny a lot of the time) - when you don't have enough you get miserable and when you have too much you are so strung out that the money hardly seems worth it. 

How do we reconcile remuneration with the often overlooked spiritual purpose behind work?  They are two very different things and balancing them often proves as challenging as a game of Jenga.

Stephen da Silva in his book "Money and the Prosperous Soul" makes the critical distinction between work and toil.  The latter is to work extremely hard or incessantly.  More than this, it is an "oppressive spiritual force" which separates work from its spiritual purpose and drives away the other vital activities necessary for maintaining our connection to God and his purpose for us.

"We have embraced slavery under toil.  Not surprisingly this is linked to our slavery to debt, for our financial obligations demand that we work under toil"

Rest, says Da Silva is critical in striking the balance.  So much so in fact that God, after freeing his people from Egypt - prescribed the Sabbath not just for prayer and study but for recreation too.  In fact, until that point, no ancient society observed a day of rest like the Jews did.  

I am not about to make a law about the Sabbath itself - but I cannot help but feel that we are still required to pay the price for real recreation - yes the price - because leisure time and recreation costs - not just monetarily but in the effort and courage required to leave our gilded cells. 

"Below the surface of the commandment is the understanding that leisure is appropriate to a free people -  Leisure is conducive to freedom - and freedom is necessary for dreaming.  Without dreaming, our creativity, by which we bring solutions, beauty and all else that makes our world better, is shut down"

Note to Self: Don't waste your life

I am haunted by the possibility of wasting my life.  

Indeed, each day is a battle between two extremes: of living the next 24 hours for the rewards of this life or of living so that, in the words of the Gladiator Maximus, my actions echo in eternity.

Though in my mind I may hold these trade-offs in sharp relief, the right decision is never guaranteed.  Indeed, this is my life's battle.

"Let me go and bury my father" says one of Jesus' followers in the Gospel of Matthew.

"Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead" replies Jesus.

It was a pretty harsh reply, especially given the great importance the Jews placed on the duty of children to bury their parents.  Yet only Jesus knew how crucial his mission was.  Only he knew the day and the hour when he would be seized and executed.  Only he knew that he had about three years to mould a small yet resilient task force to incarnate his kingdom in the World at large.  Just three years.  Not a long time - not then, not now.  

The clock was ticking and he had work to do.

Last week I received a medium term employment offer which would pretty much see me through financially until mid December.  An opportunity not to worry about income for at least another year - to perhaps spend on a few luxuries we've been putting off since I became self-employed.  A chance to immerse myself again in the world of big business - learn at the cutting edge of commerce.

It was - for a few minutes anyway - a tempting proposition.  Until I looked at it from another angle.

One of the great joys of self-employment has been the freedom to dream again.  Not to kick back and veg out during the down time but to ride the winds of possibility as and when they blow.  How to value that freedom in light of this offer?  

More than this, I'd been in full time corporate employment before - in the very company which furnished the offer - and for 16 long years at that.  At least 10 of them were some of the hardest most bitter years of my life.  In fact, the offer in question involved the type of work I'd spent years asking God to deliver me from.  Even with the prospect of medium term financial security - why go back? 

"it was for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery"

Though Paul was chastising the Galatians for discarding the gospel of Grace in favor of the law, the parallels are striking.  It's all about going back to your comfort zones - even when they aren't beneficial for you.  Behaving like the proverbial dog which returns to its vomit.

Have I made up my mind?  Yes.  Am I at peace with my decision?  Mostly.  Is this bravado?  I trust it is faith.  I am stirred by the introduction to Erwin McManus' book "Chasing Daylight":

"This a call to live a life of blazing urgency. We have but one life. We are given one opportunity to pursue our dreams and fulfill our divine purpose. Every moment counts, and we must engage them with fierceness and zeal. Put an end to passive observation, paralyzed by the need for perfect opportunity, and start seizing the raw, untapped potential of your life with God".

Or as Bill Hybel wrote in his book, "The Power of a Whisper"

"life is long enough to live out God's purpose, but too short to waste a moment"

The Tyrannical To-Do List

Fellow blogger Dave Phipson this week posted a most provocative piece entitled "no time for inspiration".  In it, he bemoans a problem I suspect many, if not all of us experience - the critical shortage of hours in a day.  He writes:

"For millennia 24 hours have been enough for the human race (including the necessary time for rest), but life in the 21st century demands more of the day that it is able to deliver. We have run into a bit of a problem with the physical laws that govern the Universe, and it wouldn't surprise me if there are people working in lab coats in some top secret location somewhere underground, trying to slow time, attempting to change the Universe to suit our needs"

I'd go a step further than Dave - more than a "bit of a problem", it would seem the Universe is actually thumbing it's nose at us, belittling us for our short-sightedness yet at the same time, almost challenging us to put things right.

The problem however is that our days have become thoroughly strip-mined by a seemingly innocuous yet apparently indispensible invention of the Industrial Age.  (And it's not Facebook).  We emerge from our slumber to feed it.  We rise early to confront it.  We mainline on caffeine just to cope with the pressures it exerts on us.

It is, of course, the humble "to-do" list.

When, some distant day in the future, the full and unabridged history of mankind is eventually compiled and catalogued, its pages will no doubt speak of the great evils and travesties committed by mankind - genocides, wars, pogroms and the like.  To some degree, these will be countervailed by tales of great inventors, courageous humanitarians and wise leaders.

But perhaps the most tragic of its installments will attest to stuff that was actually meant to happen but which never did because well resourced and capable men and women fell slave to the most tyrannical of sceptres ever known - the to-do list.  Indeed, will the record reflect a greater despot?

"When your outputs exceed your inputs your upkeep becomes your downfall"

Sparrow Faith and my own business

A friend once likened running your own business to jumping out of at 100 story building.  As you hurtle past the 75th floor someone inside yells: "how's it going?" You answer - "so far so good!" 

A curiously apt description for how I feel at the moment.  

I read recently of how battle-hardened and even decorated soldiers of The Great War - in spite of prolonged exposure to fire - would suddenly lose their nerve and be court-martialled for cowardice.

I see a lot of me in that anecdote.  Minus, of course, what Wilfred Owen called "the monstrous anger of the guns".  The so-called "nerve" which spirited me from my corporate job 3 years ago - and which to some degree has sustained me ever since - is faltering once again.  

The relative and inevitable lull which settles at the beginning of the year has me worrying about my future income as though the last 36 months of God's goodness and blessing had never actually happened.

Two things are behind this:

Comparison

When I compare myself to the financial/career struggles of my peers - more specifically the relative blessings I have enjoyed - something in my subconscious says:  "it's just a matter of time before my fortune lapses and I am in the same boat as those poor souls. There's no way some of us can take all the blessings."

This view is flawed on so many levels it's not even worth unpacking.  Instead, let me direct you to my post "Comparison Kills - That is All".

Sparrow Faith - or lack thereof

Probably one of Jesus' most profound illustrations (Matt 6:26) spoke to the type of faith he expected of his followers.  Craig Hill, in his book "Wealth, Riches and Money" calls "Sparrow Faith" the "foundation cornerstone of Christian financial structure".

"This is an absolute trust and confidence and leaning of one's entire personality upon the fact that God loves me and will make provision for me.  If I am working 40 hours a week for an employer, the money I receive is not my due from him, but rather provision made available to me by grace as a gift from my Father, who loves me.  This fact then makes God my source of provision and my employer merely delegated as the current channel through which my provision comes."

Hill goes on to show how Sparrow Faith will serve us when the foundations of our employment are rocked, either by recession, re-structuring or something else:

"...my heart is not terrorized by fear of lack of provision, because my employer is not my source.  The source has not changed.  God's love for me has not changed.  God may simply use a different channel through which to provide for my needs."

In closing, I was greatly heartened by the story of a Congolese refugee car guard who, having erected a rudimentary blackboard in the parking lot of a Paarl shopping centre, provided lively explanations to mathematical problems to whoever would listen.  Once a maths teacher, Fernando Ogadi's obvious flair for sums soon caught the eye of a Sunward Park headmistress who was overwhelmed by his charm and who pulled strings to get him a job at a Boksburg school.

I suppose this story doesn't say much about Sparrow Faith or Comparison.  Yet when you consider that guarding cars is probably one of the lousiest jobs you can have, the spirit and tenacity of this man is strangely encouraging.