Getting the most out of a pressured life

Stephen Covey died recently.  He was a clever bloke.  He wrote a really good book called the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  You might have read it.  In this book Covey sought to equip people for actually getting the stuff out of life that they want to get out of life.  He identified 7 habits that would enable people to do this; 1) be proactive, 2) begin with the end in mind, 3) put first things first, 4) think win-win, 5) seek first to understand and then be understood, 6) synergise, 7) sharpen the saw.

I read this book about 10 years ago and think I have benefitted a lot from it.  In this blog I want to focus on 3) - put first things first.  I think this is pretty self-explanatory as a habit.  It involves working out what is most important and then spending most time on those things rather than on other stuff that crops up.  If you find it hard to say ‘no’ to people then you probably don’t know what is most important to you.  If you find yourself spending too much time focussing on annoying stuff at work then you probably don’t know what is most important to you.  If you don’t feel like your life is amounting to anything then you probably don’t know what is most important to you.  You end up feeling pressured and frustrated. And maybe a bit bored.  And then you go and bonk your neighbour’s wife.  Or something like that.

And the problem we have with this kind of situation is that it often causes us to focus on being too busy or being under too much pressure which makes us feel even more pressured and even more busy and we generally feel that our life is a stress and we are not living well.  But I think that focussing on the busyness is thinking about this from the wrong end of the problem.  The thing we should do in this kind of situation is ask ourselves ‘what is the most important thing in my life?’.  Some other clever bloke (I think it might have been John C Maxwell) has said “the greatest incentive for saying ‘no’ to something is having a bigger “yes” burning inside of you.  If we know what is most important to us then we will, usually, be in a far better place to ignore or completely cut out the things that are making us feel pressured.  

Do you know what is most important to you?  Do you have a ‘yes’ burning inside of you?  Do you have something that your heart burns for?  If not, you could spend some time working out what that ‘yes’ might be.  

Paul’s “yes” was being an apostle to the gentiles.  In Philippians he said “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me”.  Paul focussed on the most important thing.  He put that first, forgetting all that is past and considering everything else loss except the pursuit of this call.  Jesus himself was the same.  He said he had come to earth to seek and save the lost.  He said he only did what he saw the Father doing.  He didn’t stop to heal every sick person or to chat with every person who approached.  He moved on from a village even when it was begging him to stay.  He savagely rebuked Peter for trying to prevent him from achieving his call.  Jesus knew what was ‘first’ for him.  And when he died he said “it is finished”.  He lived and died in perfect fulfillment of his call.  How cool is that.  That is the kind of life I would love all of us men to experience.

So next time you pray, rather than asking God to take away your busyness, why not ask him to tell you what he took hold of you for.  Next time you are at church why don’t you go forward for ministry and ask people to pray for you to know your call.  Next time you grab a drink with a friend, why not ask them to tell you what they see in you and who they think God is calling you to be.  

And then, when you start to get a sense of what is ‘first’ for you - whether that is being a street-sweeper who glorifies God through his cheerfulness and decent work, or a father who helps his kids to love Jesus, or a combination of those things - get ruthless about cutting stuff out that doesn’t actively build into that ‘first’.  I’ve never done any ironing. I always figured it was a waste of time.  People at work used to comment on my creased shirts but what did I care?  I was better rested than them and less stressed and so could respond more sharply in meetings.  I always told prospective-employers that I wouldn’t work past 5.30pm.  I would get in real early but I would never stay late.  I didn’t get a few jobs.  I turned a few others down.  But I saw my kids every day and got to read the bible and pray with them every single day before bed (I think I’ve probably read the bible with my boys every day of their lives except for about 20 days when I have been staying away for work, and my wife did those days instead).  Always since uni I have taken a sabbath day once a week where I won’t do any work at all.  Once or twice I have compromised on this and I have hated it.  This stance caused some friction with one of my old bosses.  Since working at church I’ve missed a few church events that I would have liked to attend.  But I’ve tried to be ruthless in these things for the sake of pursuing my “first” thing.  I’m not saying these things are what everyone should cut out.  Maybe ironing is crucial for you to build into what God has called you to.  What is critical is that you know what you are called to and you drop the stuff that doesn’t help you get there.  If you do that, then I really believe you will know more peace in your life.  You will feel more joy.  And you will bring more glory to the One who called you.

4 reasons God wants you to work & 3 he doesn't

Last night in bed I was thinking about what God says about work. That isn't in my top 3 favourite things to do in bed ;) but it has prompted this blog:

Work has been a big thing I've been mulling over for the last month or two, especially as I feel like I am disappearing further and further into the the sticky goo of Christian sub-culture.  I think work is one of the major issues for most men.  Here's where I've got to so far.  I'd love to hear your comments:

The time you spend at work is not wasted.  It is not a distraction.  God wants us to work.  He calls us to work.  He equips us to work.

Why:

1) if you work hard and do it well you will receive a reward from Jesus (trying to do your work well will give you spiritual benefit!)

Colossians 3:23 "whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving"

2) if you respect your employer you will bring glory to God

1 Timothy 6:1 "all who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered"

3) work gives you money to provide for your family (if you don't bother trying to provide for your family God doesn't like it very much. As an aside, providing for your family in Paul's eyes is giving them food, clothing and probably shelter (cf 1Tim6:6-9 below). It doesn't mean you have to give all your children their own bedroom or your brother an expensive present every christmas etc etc)

1 Timothy 5:8 "if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever"


4) work enables you to get alongside people and witness to them

1 Peter 2:12 "live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the Day he visits us"


So I fully believe that God sends you off to work every morning and is cheering you on when you are there.

But there are some reasons that many of us, if we are honest, go to work and (in particular) stay at work late.  I think there are bad attitudes that God wants to prune out of us because they all fundamentally grow out of a lack of trust in God:

1) Lack of trust in the love of God - desire to gain approval from work colleagues:

John 12:42 "yet at the same time many even among the temple leaders believed in Jesus.  But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God"

- confessing the faith is not just in words but also in life priorities, in commitments, in actions.                 Does your diary suggest your love praise from your boss more than praise from God?

2) Lack of trust in the provision of God - hungry to get rich

1 Timothy 6:6-9 "Godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.  People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction"

Matthew 6:31 "So do not worry, saying, 'what shat we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'what shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them."

3) Lack of trust in the call of God - hiding at work from your non-work responsibilities

1 Corinthians 15:58 "Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain."

- the 'work of the Lord' that you have been called to spans many contexts - work, family, community, church and culture.  Over-giving yourself in one of these contexts is actually letting something move you.  It is failing to stand firm.  It is under-selling yourself.

If you find yourself working for any of these 3 reasons, repent! Ask God to forgive you and change your heart and know that he will! God is for us not against us and he is not unaware of our struggles. And then talk it through with someone and ask them to pray for you, that you will grow in trust and awareness of the both the strength of God and the depth of his love.

God has made us to work.  God has called us to work.  God has equipped us to work.  Let's work for our reward, for His glory, for our family and for the sake of our colleagues, and then let's pack up our stuff and get on home.

The call to be polite

I was reading through my bible blog from last year and came across this which I think was one of the best things I wrote.  What are you fostering in yourself?  What are you fostering in your children? What are you fostering in the guys in your house group, what are you representing to the guys in your workplace?

Luke 17:11-37

My sons have been to various kids groups where they have been read this 10 lepers story and then told that this means Jesus wants them to say thankyou when people do nice things for them.  What a load of crap.  This is just absolutely not about politeness and it angers and distresses me so greatly that anyone would feel that they should tell kids that it is.  What our children, and us, need to know is not that God wants us to sit calmly at the dinner table but that he wants us to acknowledge that all saving and healing power flows from Jesus.  Jesus is perplexed by the other 9 lepers because they have failed to see who he is.  These 9 lepers have been wasting away outside of the city, cut off from all prospects and relationships, permanently ringing a bell and saying “unclean, unclean” and watching their body decay before their eyes.  Now they can live again - they are healthy and pure, they can marry and gain employment, they can rejoice and converse with others.  How can they not see that this points to Jesus as the Healer, to Jesus as God with Us bringing hope to the hopeless and life to the lifeless?  Jesus expresses surprise not because he wanted recognition of himself but because the 9 lepers have chosen only to go 1 step along a 10 mile journey.  The 9 have received the tiniest scrap of grace and have been too thick or too self-obsessed or too distracted to come back for some more.  The greatest gift this 1 leper received was not his healing but his faith in Jesus.  That is what we should be teaching our children.  That is what we should be acknowledging ourselves.  This is what we should be screaming out to our world.

Tick Tock Ouch Ouch

Each ticking of the clock is like a paper-cut to the soul of a man.  At least that’s what I’ve been thinking a bit recently.  

I’ve been subscribing to GQ magazine as the most popular men’s magazine in the UK (woof!) and I’ve been amazed by how many watch adverts there are in it.  In last month’s issue the first 10 pages had 8 separate advertisments for timepieces and across the rest of the magazine every third advert was for a watch.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was expecting cars to be the things most often wafted under the noses of men.  Either that or some fragrance that would guarantee you hot sex with some very skinny woman.  But no, it is the watch that takes pride of place.

I wonder what it is that makes a finely crafted watch so desirable?  Maybe it is simply because it is one of the few pieces of jewelry that most men wear.  But I think there is something deeper to it as well.  I think it is an attempt to redeem the fleeting nature of life.  

The Teacher bonked the nail firmly on the head when he said in Ecclesiastes that everything is meaningless.  And the word ‘meaningless’ in the Hebrew language conveys a sense of evaporating mist.  It is a slightly depressing fact of life that no matter how toned your six-pack becomes, it will be wrinkly and/or flabby in 20 years time (I’m talking about your six-pack, not mine - mine will never be less obvious than it is now...).  And no matter how many times you are promoted at work, you will one day see a younger pup coming along and take your place.  And no matter how much time you pour into your family, your great-grandchildren will very likely not even remember your name.  No matter how virile and bombastic you manage to be in life, in the long run you will be dead and forgotten.

And I think we men really get cut up about that.  I certainly do.  I like to think that I am making my mark on this universe. I don’t like to be reminded that every second that ticks by is a second closer to my mark disappearing away like a hand imprint on a wet sponge.  Each one of those tick tocks is like an assault on my soul.  They really hurt.  And so my desire is either to find some way of forgetting about the passing of time or to find a way of redeeming it.  And so I buy an expensive watch.  A watch that I can pass on to my ancestors.  A watch that is grand and shiny and which assures me of how important and successful and significant I am even at the same time that it is reminding me that I am like a mist.

But as The Teacher says (in a bit of a paraphrase), buying an expensive watch is just like chasing after the wind; it is trying to redeem something that cannot be redeemed.  My watch is lying to me when it suggests to me that I am not like a vapour.

And yet, thank the sweet Lord Jesus, it does not end there.  The yearning for eternity is not just a futile yearning.  The desire to make a mark does not have to be frustrated for ever.  We can indeed become more than a vapour.  For it is God who has put eternity in the desires of all men, and He is not just a sadist.  And it is in the Ageless One; it is in the Maker of the Beginning and the Maker of the End; it is in Eternal God that we can find redemption for our fleeting existence.  In God, in fear of Him and obedience to his commandments can we overcome the trifling insignificance of our years on earth.  For He calls us to step into his eternal river of life.  He has beckoned us to join with him in his everlasting purposes.  Not by buying watches.  Not by getting promoted at work.  And not by just praying either.  He bids us to store up eternal riches for ourselves by asking us to fight for the salvation of our colleagues and neighbours, to strain every sinew in tackling injustice and to push hard to build up others in their faith.  

When we choose to co-labour with Christ we can be assured of this - even though these blokes’ great-grandchildren won’t remember us, Our Great God will.  And he will reward us for every single effort we make for Him.

The S Word

When I was about 15 I wrote this worship song:

Thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you
God for making breasts.

Although I might now want to insert "my wife's" into the last line I think the sentiment still pretty much stands.  And I don't believe I am the only man who feels this way...

Indeed, in Proverbs 5:18 in the NIV Bible it beseeches men to rejoice in the wife of their youth.  And if any of them need any clarification as to what exactly that means it gets pretty down and dirty in the next verse by saying 'may her breasts satisfy you always'.  Flip, I can barely believe it.  But there it is right slap bang in the middle of the bible - God made breasts at least in part to bring satisfaction to husbands.

And if you are finding all this a bit saucy then don't even look at Song of Songs chapter 4 and all its talk about going to the mountain of myrrh until day breaks and to the hill of incense until the shadows flee.  Or, for that matter, chapter 2 when the woman says that the man's fruit is sweet to taste and how she want him to refresh her with apples from his apple tree.

No matter how quiet we are about it in christian adult culture the bible bellows out sex-talk like a slightly embarrassing grandfather.  We can't deny it - making whoopee is a profoundly biblical thing to do.  God made us to bonk.

So, as point number one.  Let's embrace that fact.  Let us see our wives as fellow explorers on a God-ordained voyage of orgasm and arousal.  It is a great adventure that married couples can go on together.  Paul the apostle (who didn't have the pleasure of taking the journey himself) regularly recommended to his churches that married couples should spend a good amount of time in bed together (or something like that) to keep their relationships strong and their love sweet (or something like that).

And then as point number two, swiftly off the back of that, let's recognise that for many of us talk of arousal and orgasm and adventure and pleasure rings very hollow when we think of sex.  We might not be married despite holding a ten-year membership on Christian Chat Cafe.  We might be married but have physical issues that cause major problems with sex.  Or we might be married and physically as buff as they come but just can't seem to make it work with our spouse.  Increasingly I am realising that a huge number of us fall into these categories... and we trudge around in them feeling lonely and frustrated.  And, if we sit in them like that for too long then we start to doubt the goodness of God and the goodness of women and the goodness of our penises and we start to act out destructive behaviours to either deny that sex is good or to pursue it in avenues that we shouldn't (and the bible has a lot to say about that as well).

Sex is another one of those issues where it really pays to understand the now and the not yet of the kingdom - where we can simultaneously embrace the promise and the wonder and the beauty of God's kingdom and at the same time be real about the way that is currently intermingled with the residue of the corruption and the struggle of our fallenness.

What I think we really need in our church are men like an old housegroup leader of mine.  He was a GP so he had a bit of inside knowledge on the issue but he still chose to put it out there all the time (and I mean all the time!).  He would always find ways to talk about sex, the problems with sex, the pleasures of sex and the beauty of his wife's body (I always felt a bit uncomfortable during those conversations, especially when it was summer and she was stood in the room wearing what a lot of women wear in summer).  What I loved so much about him was that gave permission for all of us younger guys to talk with him about it.  He helped me realise that some of the issues I had as a newly-married man were pretty common and fully legitimate to bring before God and trusted guys in the church.  And he encouraged me to embrace the truly biblical understanding of our genitals; as pleasure palaces and intimacy builders, as love tools and worship instruments.

So when we chat please can I ask some of the older guys especially to be asking us younger guys how our sex lives are?  And for us to be asking each other this in a sensitive and loving kind of way, giving permission for us all to share our struggles and our issues and our concerns.

And at the same time let's encourage those of us who are married to pray for great sex with our wives and to work hard at helping them and us together go on this voyage of delight that has been charted out for us by our God.

A life well lived

For a few hours yesterday afternoon I thought I was going to die.  My whole body ached, my stomach was killing and my head felt like it was being crushed between Mr T's hands.  And so I thought I was going to die (the fact that I had watched Steven Soderburg's film Contagion the night before where people did die of similar symptoms did not help!).

And it made me think about life.  If I was to die, would I have lived like I wanted to?  Would I have lived like God has wanted me to?  Would I have lived well?

And this sort of fits into some stuff I have been thinking about the two Joshuas in the bible.  The first Joshua was a no-holes-bared, strong-arm, courageous, victory-scars on the cheek kind of hero.  He had led a whole nation into a territory full of giants and kings... and he had won.  This Joshua had eyeballed enemy after enemy and he had smashed them all into oblivion.  This Joshua had berated and cajoled his followers into great exploits and mighty victories.  He had never failed to set the example or to be the first out on the pitch.  And so he was a great man.  I imagine he had biceps as big as my thighs and thighs as big as my torso and hair as wild and long as a wild, long-haired maniac.  I imagine he would have been captain of his rugby team, and rapidly promoted in his business, and the recipient of massive Christmas bonuses and often talked about in the dying light of the Israeli evenings.  In so many ways he looked like he had a life well lived.  And yet I think he ultimately flunked it.  This is what it says in Judges 2:8-11


"Joshua, Son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten... after that whole generation had been gathered up to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.  Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals."


Somehow this amazing man Joshua, this incredible, inspirational leader failed to provide any legacy.  The fruit that the Lord bore in his life had gone rotten within a few years of his death.  What a flipping tragedy.

Now I might be wrong but I think the reason for this might be found in the most famous of quotes of Joshua "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"(Joshua 24:15).  I know this comes at the end of a big speech where Joshua is calling all of Israel to stay true to the Lord, but I think that within it lies a hint, a small seed of suggestion that Joshua saw himself as separate from those around him.  I wonder if Joshua was displaying a little hint of individualism - a smidgen of self-focus - when he declared that ultimately he would act like an example to others rather but not so much as an empower-er of them.  Joshua's declaration seems to suggest that his leadership was about him doing what he thought was right and others deciding whether or not they would follow him.

The second Joshua didn't lead like that.  One of the first things the second Joshua is recorded as saying is "come follow me, and I will make you fishers of me" (Mark 1:17).  The second Joshua, Jesus, not only focussed on himself being an example to others but also on helping others become all that his Father had called them to be.  Jesus' whole life was caught up with empowering others, with discipling others, with apprenticing them to him, with calling them out of their sin and into fullness of life by his side.  And Jesus' life was ultimately summed up with that dramatic act of sacrifice on the cross where he died for the benefit of others.  Where Jesus chose to lose the battle and have his reputation smashed so that others could ultimately been redeemed and empowered through the resurrection and pentecost.

As men I think it is so, so easy to live like the first Joshua and think we are doing a great job.  It is so easy to focus on how many people attend our things and speak well of us.  It is so easy to concern ourselves with thinking about how good an example we are setting.  And yet, if we do that, I fear that our lives will bear less fruit than Jesus desires for us.  Instead, a life well lived is one that aligns itself to others and seeks to help them become all that God has called them to be.  It is about intentionally choosing 2 or 3 other guys and making time for them, choosing to speak out words of encouragement to them and to gently challenge them when they are off.  It is about praying for them and grabbing coffee with them and sharing with them whatever God has been teaching you about recently.  And, it is about investing in our children (if we have them).  No one else will be a father to them.  No other man will have so much permission to speak into their lives.  No one else will have such insight into what is so good in them, or understanding of what is self-destructive and bad.  No one else will have such potential to give them a flying start in life, making them ready to grasp hold of all that God has for them.   But that doesn't just happen - we have to choose to make it so.

But if we do this, I am convinced that on that day when we lie on our death bed we will know that we have lived life well.  We may not have the accolades that we might have had and we may not have scars on our cheeks but we will know that other men, and our children, are going on beyond on us.  We will know that we have empowered others and enabled them to become more of who they could be and we will have faithfully passed on the baton with our life.  There can be no better feeling than that.

The call on a man

When I was a kid my grandfather lived in Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast.  And he was a lunatic.  He had wild, white hair that stuck out in lots of different directions (a bit like Einstien's or an albino Beaker from the Muppets) and he had this permanent half-grin on his face.  When we stayed with him - which we did for about 5 weeks a year - he would regularly look over at me as if he had never seen me before.  He would fix his gaze right into my eyeballs and then raise his right index finger and speaking in a drawn-out Yorkshire accent "who... are you?"  My brothers and I used to find it pretty funny - and my grandfather did too - but there was more to it than just joking around; he wanted us to really think about that question.  He said it was the most important question in the world.  And I think he was right.  (As an interesting aside, when my grandfather got older he got senile dementia and then he really did keep asking who I was and at some point along the line he came to believe that I was an old school-friend of his called Sonny Cawper.  Life is an interesting thing.)

I've been thinking about that question a lot recently - who am I?  And I've also been tacking onto it a subsequent question - and what am I for?  And when I've been reading the bible I've realised that nearly all the big players - Jesus, Paul, Peter, John - built everything on top of their understanding of who they were.  Jesus knew he was Son of God and Son of Man.  Paul knew he was apostle to the gentiles.  Peter knew he was a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.  John knew that he was the beloved disciple, called to testify of the eternal life that he has seen and heard and touched.  And so I ask myself the question - what is the foundation that I am building my life on?  Who do I really think that I am?  Because who I think I am will set the direction for all my actions and my desires and and hopes.  And maybe you are in the same place too?  Maybe you also are not yet able to sign off a letter with your name and a pithy description of your true identity?

And so, if we are truly to discover who we are, where do we look?  Well,  I think we could do a lot worse than to start with 1 Tim 1:15:

"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst.  But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life"

Out of this I take two major things:

1) I am a redeemed punk.  I was a wicked man.  I was an utter divhead.  While I had some appearance of goodness, at my core I was actually hideously corrupted.  I could find no valid basis for my identity within my own self.  And yet Jesus came and rescued me.  Jesus came and uncorrupted me.  Jesus came and, in his mercy, began to fix my mind and my soul and my heart.  Jesus gave me a basis of my identity that is in him.  And so I am no longer 'the worst of sinners' but I am 'the worst of sinners who has been shown mercy'.  My identity rests not in me but in what He has done to me - in how he has turned me around and made me new.  

2) I am God's gift to the world.  God has chosen to do something in me as a present to the whole world - to show others that they can have hope, to show others that they can have life.  My identity is intrinsically linked to mission to people, to the salvation of the world.  My identity is not just something to build me up but to build into God's over-arching desire to see all people set free.

And so, man of God, I encourage you to think upon these things.  To find time to chew on these words.    And after chewing on them to spend time in silence before the Father asking him to weld them into you and emboss them all over you.  For if we do, then we really come to know who we are.  And, once we know who we are then we can really live the full life that we are called to.