Reading
“[Jesus said] Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” – Matthew 6:19-21
Reflection
There are lots of ways to spend one’s treasure. By “treasure” I mean one’s time, attention, money, or assignment of priority. What kinds of things do you put your mind on, wonder about, look up information on, or spend your money to get? Chances are quite good that you can look at the searches listed on your smart phone and learn something about how you’re spending your treasure.
Sometimes, I’ll choose a random month and keep track of all the fifteen-minute increments of my workday to see how I’m allotting my time. The purpose is to determine whether I’m being judicious about what things take my time in my ministry. I make sure to give adequate time to the unexpected opportunities for ministry outreach to people, and I try to keep a bit of a buffer in my planned schedule to meet those needs. Plus, I just want to be a good steward of the money that the church is paying me for my job. I’ve found this intermittent practice to be helpful and enlightening for my continued professional growth.
I’ve also found such intermittent recordkeeping to be helpful in my personal life. Keeping track of how I spend my leisure time tells me a lot about where I might be using distraction to escape my feelings, or where I’m placing priority on certain things just because doing so has become an automatic habit. For instance, one thing I’m trying to take a close look at right now is whether I’m checking my phone mindlessly or if I really need to check it for messages or information. It’s strange to realize that such a useful tool for my work and personal life (like my smartphone) can end up being a big distraction that interrupts every good idea I seem to be incubating.
Furthermore, it’s humbling to realize that things which were created to be of help to us (giving us easier communication and saving us time) can end up making us feel less and less human. Our eyes become trained to our phones, and our minds become trained to other people’s thoughts and comments. To be honest, all of this might be shaping us into someone different than who we want to be.
In his book Practicing the Way, John Mark comer states, “The things we do, do something to us; they get into the core of our being and shape our loves and longings.” What do you want to be shaped by? Who do you want to become? Who are you called to love? And what do you long for, above everything else?
One of the wonderful things about God is that God is not only a Creator who created things at the beginning; God is also a Creator who continues to create. Therefore, I trust that God is not done with me yet. God is helping me to become what God wants me to become. Admittedly, I sometimes (often?) choose things that get in the way of such growth in myself. And that’s where prayer comes in.
I wonder what would happen if each of us decided to add just fifteen minutes of prayer in each of our days. I bet I could easily find fifteen minutes that I’d gladly give up so that I could make this happen. For instance, sometimes I find myself spending that much time looking for a show to stream when I wasn’t even really interested in a show in the first place. I was just resorting to a habit I’ve built.
Would you consider joining me in finding an extra fifteen minutes of your day, so that you could spend more quiet time with God? I sense it might be key in each of us continuing the process of becoming who God really wants us to become.
Prayer
Almighty and Loving God, our lives often feel quite full, but we don’t quite feel fully human. Our lives are filled with many things and lots of preoccupations; yet our lives sometimes feel less than fulfilled. Teach us to grow in this regard, Lord. Help us to understand that it’s not that you desire us to feel shame or blame. Instead, we pray that you’ll coax us toward saying yes to this opportunity to grow. If we embrace shame, we’ll be even more likely to revert to isolation, escapism, or worse. Instead, we ask that you might move us closer and closer to living in the constant guidance of your Holy Spirit. In our society, it’s tempting to move toward isolation. We can order groceries, dinner–and everything else–and not even have to greet the delivery person at the door. Life with fewer human contacts might be modestly less risky, and maybe even moderately less complex. But it’s also exponentially less satisfying! Create in us a new heart, Lord—a heart that reaches out to others’ hearts. Help us to claim back what it means to be fully alive and fully human. Amen.
