Matthew 6:1-18

There are a few chapters in the Bible that I come back to regularly, no matter the season, and they always seem to apply, no matter the situation. They’re the chapters that have, over time, most deeply shaped and reshaped my view of God, myself, and my place in His kingdom on earth. When I question if God cares for me, doubt my identity, battle anxiety, forget the priorities, think it’s all vanity,...they’re the chapters that center me. I might call them my personal formation chapters. 

One of them is Matthew 6. If you skim through it, you might notice how many times the word Father is repeated, a sure sign that this is a theme.  I counted twelve times, the most famous found in verse 9, when Jesus teaches his disciples to begin their prayers by addressing, “Our Father in heaven…” He used a similar phrase in the first verse of this chapter, which means He’s told us twice that our Father is in heaven. 

There is certainly consolation in that. Our Father is in a place above all things, so nothing is outside of His authority. Our Father is in a place of perfection, so our future with Him will be whole. Our Father is in a place of eternality, so His existence is unending. 

But is heaven the only place to be assured of our Father’s presence? So often, heaven seems like a land far away, somewhere over the rainbow. Where on earth is our Father when you’re quietly working a side job to support someone in need, thanklessly changing diapers and treating fevers at midnight, regularly showing up for a friend with cancer, achingly praying for a spouse?  Is the Father loftily observing from a distance?

Verses 6 and 18 whisper the answer, doubly emphasizing another place we find our Father, calling Him “your Father who is in secret.” The very Father who is in heaven, is your Father in secret, unseen moments. If I believe what Jesus repeats twice about our Father in a heavenly place, then I lean into what He repeats twice about my Father in a hidden place. He is invisible, and the invisible is what catches His eye. 

Your unannounced giving, unobserved praying, and unnoticed fasting are where your Father waits to reward you.  But maybe it’s because those are the moments we linger in least and publicize most, that we don’t experience His presence like He intends. Maybe it’s because we hate to feel invisible, that we aren’t transformed to His likeness as He intends.

Giving. Praying. Fasting.

In which of these practices are you joining your Father’s invisibility to enjoy His presence more fully?

Time: My thoughts about it & a resource for spending it

On Redeeming Your Time, by Jordan Raynor

I have a really hard time in an arcade (I’m sorry if you own one - maybe yours is different!). Call me snobby, but it’s an attack on my senses: the neon lights, the unrelated sounds altogether, the aroma of fries and sweat. Even worse, it’s an attack on my sense of justice: the games that you can never really beat and the ticket exchange. 

The ticket exchange. I may have waited on the fringe of the chaos while my boys were playing, but this is my moment. I willingly emerge from the sidelines to guide, to process, and to help them make the most informed choice. The glass checkout counter invites a long decision-making process, arranging the options from 2-ticket erasers to out-of-reach Xboxes. 

With only so many tickets to redeem, even if they strategically pool their resources, they’ve spent more for pencils, stickers, and slime than I’d ever agree to pay for those things. I have a really hard time in an arcade. 

But in life, how many minutes have I spent like arcade tickets, exchanging them for plastic prizes, as if that’s what time is worth? Time spent culminates into life spent. My spending of time is my spending of life itself, and when I turn in at the end of the day, I want to know that time was well-spent. I only have so much of it.

In Redeeming Your Time, Jordan Raynor examines Jesus’ life and extrapolates practical principles for living out our minutes, hours, and days to their fullest potential.  It’s a book filled with both grace and truth: grace, because a relationship with Christ isn’t about more productive days, and truth, because too often we carelessly waste our days without the thought of Christ.  

He gently and passionately explores topics like organizing commitments, filtering the use of technology, and enjoying our limited capacity. He writes like he’s inviting a friend into something he can’t wait for the friend to experience, not like someone analyzing your time card.  

My biggest take-away from Redeeming Your Time is the step he calls “Practice 3: Schedule deep-work appointments with yourself”. Deep work is a concept about important projects that demand all of your attention over a period of time, and we only have the ability to do a limited amount of deep work each day.  When I’m working on something that matters deeply and needs intense focus, I should schedule that at the time of day when I am my strongest self.  

So when is your energy highest, and what are you pouring it into during that time frame? Please don’t say arcades!

Habakkuk for the Holidays

Habakkuk 3

Sometimes my body shouts, “I can’t!”, while my soul claims, “yet I will…” Whether it’s bad news, the uncertainty of a next step, or the probability of hardship ahead, I don’t like the discomfort. I can’t handle it. I can’t bear it. And yet, my soul begs to differ.

In our concluding chapter, fifteen of the nineteen verses describe Habakkuk’s vision of God intervening in epic proportions - a scene that Marvel Studios must have taken notes from. For His people’s salvation, he sees God dismantle nations, overthrow governments and displace authorities. No earthly ruler resists Him. Stepping in as Savior, he disrupts nature, extending his reach from ocean depths to outer space. No earthly obstacle can limit Him. But Israel has turned their backs.  

Now God’s judgment is coming against His people, instead of working on their behalf, and this affects Habakkuk in two profoundly different ways: physically and spiritually. He calculates the physical consequence of Babylon’s pending invasion, and it’s a nightmare: fruitless labor, lack of food, failed investments, financial ruin. His score in red ink at the top of life’s page: F

He shakes, his lips quiver, and his legs go weak. It seems like he’ll weep or faint, or have a panic attack. His body shouts, “I can’t!” Ever feel that stress takes its toll on your body, the world’s brokenness keeps you from sleep, or that sadness saps your energy? Ever heard a devastating word that comes like a punch in the gut? Ever felt sick to your stomach because of what you know?

And yet…though his body feels too fragile to handle the immediate future, there’s another side to his response. His soul hasn’t crumbled in his physical weakness; instead, his faith has been reinforced. It’s only his vision of God, fifteen verses strong, that steadies him. Nothing can outlive his eternal God. No rebellion has the final say. Even this physical life won’t have the last word. Habakkuk may stand on shaky legs, but God is the stability for his feet and the salvation of his soul, come what may for now. 

Since Habakkuk’s day, God has continued his intervention in even more earth-shattering ways for the sake of His people’s salvation: Jesus dismantled the authority of sin, overthrowing death’s reign and absorbing God’s judgment. To be His people’s Savior, He disrupted nature, extending His reach from heaven to earth.  

And we marvel that, through Jesus, this power infuses everyday strength into our souls, so when our bodies tremble, our souls can echo, “yet I will wait” (v.16), “yet I will rejoice” (v.18).  Based on what you know about God, what is your soul’s “yet I will” to your “I can’t”? 

Habakkuk for the Holidays

Habakkuk 2

If you look up the word slow in a thesaurus, most of the synonyms imply bad habits, like negligent or tardy, or they imply fatigue, like sluggish or lethargic.  Slow is not too attractive in our thinking. Slow is only more acceptable when teens that we love learn to drive or start to date. It’s also ok for grandma’s pot roast. And that’s about it.

God reveals to Habakkuk how clearly He sees the wickedness of the enemy nation, Babylon, and how fully He will judge them in the future, but He prefaces His words about them with complete understanding of our human aversion to slow.  It’s one of my favorite lines from God in the whole book, because it sounds so tender. He counsels Habakkuk, “If it seems slow, wait for it.” 

In our long line of faith, when has God’s activity not seemed slow?

The decades Abraham waited for a son? 

The years Joseph spent in prison?

The centuries Israel suffered in slavery?

The years Hannah wept for a child?

The days Esther fasted for her people?

If it seems slow, you’re not alone. 

God assures Habakkuk that even if it seems like the time will never come, there will be a day when the wicked become victims, their security crumbles in on them, their ambitions wilt in shame, and their beliefs prove worthless. Yikes.  All this is sure, because if God’s ultimate plan is to flood the earth with His glory, then anyone whose aim is to fill the earth with their own glory strives hopelessly against the guaranteed future.  It’s futile to side against the covenant-keeping God, who reigns, unflustered, from His holy temple. Have I sided with his glory in my wait?

One test of my faith in Him is how I wait on Him. It’s exhausting to wait, because it’s a workout for my faith, but this is the kind of faith that defines the life of the righteous. In my current circumstances, am I willing to find strength in the same counsel God gave Habakkuk?

If it seems slow, wait for it.

Habakkuk for the Holidays

Habakkuk 1

If I’m honest, when I pray, I have two categories of expectation: the means God uses to answer my prayer and the timing in which God answers. The means include certain types of people or situations through which I expect God to work or make changes. My expectation on timing usually = fast.  

Habakkuk has been pleading for God to intervene in the sinfulness he sees around him, but God’s answer comes with a warning that He’s working through means Habakkuk is not expecting. He’s not sending a prophet, or an angel, or a Proverbs 31 woman to show the way. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” God says. 

He goes on to tell Habakkuk that His chosen tool of judgment on His people’s disobedience is the self-absorbed, dreaded enemy, the Babylonians, who use people for their own idolatrous ends. And God was right - Habakkuk is shocked that this is God’s answer to the perversion in his world. To Habakkuk, the Babylonians are even more depraved than Israel. How can God use depravity to correct those who don’t seem to be nearly as evil? God didn’t seem to notice that the enemy’s victory just fueled their pride. 

Generations prior, this was the consequence God had actually told them would come if His people walked away from Him. Reeling from the understanding that this is God’s means, Habakkuk has a new question about timing.  The opening verse began with his question, “How long will I cry out and you won’t answer?”,  but in the final verse of the chapter, it shifts to, “Will the enemy’s rampage go on forever?!” Chapter 1 is bookended by critiques about timing. “How long?…forever?”

What do we do when God’s means and His timing confuse us? We keep reading into Habakkuk 2:1 for his response: we station ourselves in expectation, like a guard on a tower, to look out with eyes of faith. My station is on a built-in window bench in our living room where I anticipate hearing from God as I wrestle through his seemingly questionable means or timing in response to my prayers. Stepping into this new year, do you have a physical location that represents spiritual expectation?