Sometimes it is not the big things that cause problems in life, but the little ones.
It is the old David and Goliath story
The massive engines on the space shuttle challenger worked perfectly but it was brought down by what amounts to a big washer. It is the little things that trip us up.
And it is the little things that bring us peace. For most of the last 40 years, I’ve seen churches through good and bad… but my yard swing has been my refuge. I can go out and swing away the darkness and watch the stars shine. Such a simple thing, but so powerful.
See what I mean? Little things make so much difference in life.
I would argue that often the little habits add up to be more important than the big ones.
We can forgive someone for lying to us, but what about leaving wet towels on the floor?
We accept someone with a sketchy past, but what about poor hygiene habits?
We can tolerate bad manners, but someone who compulsively clears their throat might be too much for us. See what I mean? It’s the little things.
Next week we are going to talk about how to handle some of the bigger and tougher habits of life. But this week I just want us to talk about the little ones.
Just because they are smaller habits does not mean that they are easy to change, but they are smaller bites that, given time and determination, most of us can manage. IF WE WANT TO.
That is the key phrase. IF WE WANT TO.
These little habits all hinge on one thing… IF WE WANT TO.
Take for instance a Health Habits like…How hard is it to eat a raw fruit or vegetable at every meal? Not hard, but how many of us do it? Think of the difference it could make. A small step that we could manage IF WE WANT TO.
How about a mental health habit … our lives get so crazy, how about a 5minute silence break during the day. I do this many days. It isn’t a hard habit to have IF YOU WANT TO.
Or similar might be like I said last week… pray instead of worry. Pretty easy. IF YOU WANT TO.
Maybe you need a better work habit… When you have a project to complete, how about turning off the phone for an hour of uninterrupted time. Shut off the phone and don’t check the email. I promise the world won’t end. But it only works IF YOU WANT TO.
In the area of relationships. How about this: text, email, or call one person each day just because you are thinking about them. A few seconds is all it would take… I like this one… I might have to start doing it. You could too IF YOU WANT TO.
Do you see what a difference even one of those little habits could make?
Remember,
choose the behavior you want to habituate.
Identify a reward and make it a real reward. Like if I walk 3 out of 5 days, I’ll treat myself to a Casey’s cookie.
Finally, determine a cue. It could be an alarm on your phone, when breakfast is over, every time you get in the car, or whenever you feel tired during the day. It doesn’t matter what the cue is, as long as it works for you.
Set a small intention, then build a reward and a cue around it, rinse and repeat to change a small habit… and it just might make a big change in your life.
The spiritual habit to which I want to connect it is generosity.
see what we can learn from Parable of the talents
Today we read the story of the 3 slaves who receive huge sums of money when the master heads out to a foreign country. Now a talent was a measure of weight, not currency. It was about 70 pounds or 6000 denari. Do you remember that a denari was the usual daily wage for a worker? If you aren’t quick at math that means that a talent was roughly 23 years wages for a laborer. In terms of today’s mean US income, a talent would be about a million dollars. So, the first man received $5 million, the second $2 million, and the third $1million. Even if you are the third guy a million dollars is not chump change. We can tell immediately that the man was wealthy, and he trusted his slaves entirely.
When he came back from his trip, he received a 100% increase from the first two men. $10 million from the first man, $4 million from the second man and he was happy. “Well done good and faithful servant enter into the joy of your master.” But wait for it … the third man only had his principle to return. The third man is condemned and called wicked and lazy.
Why did the third man bury the talent in the ground? In his own words, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid.”
Ding, ding, ding, We have a winner. It’s right there. He was afraid. He wasn’t lazy and wicked; he was just afraid.
Afraid he might fail, afraid he would lose the money, afraid he might get swindled… he was just afraid. Because he was afraid, he lived with his fist figuratively clenched tightly around the talent and it got him nothing.
On the other hand, there are the two slaves who took a risk and did what they could for the master, and they were rewarded. They lived with their hand open and palm up ready to bless and be a blessing to the master.
To be very clear- this parable is about more than money. In fact, our use of the word “talent” to describe an innate ability is a carryover from this very parable.
The parable is about our
treasure, but it is also about all the other areas of stewardship
talent,
testimony and
time. Of those 4 areas, one of the hardest for many of us is time.
My colleagues and I noticed about 15 years ago, a shift in what people considered most valuable in the church.
There was a time when everyone showed up for the annual chicken dinner or the UMW bazaar. In those days, people were more willing to give time than money.
Today it has flipped around. If I send an envelope around with a sign-up for youth dinners on it, most of you would rather stuff some money in the envelope than sign up for a week to cook, right? Am I right? I have seen it over and over. So even if it isn’t true for you it is very likely true for the person sitting in the next pew.
I have to say, financially, this is an amazingly generous church.
But anyone who has tried to recruit workers knows how hard that can be.
The truth is that we all have the same amount of time in our day, our week, and our month. Yet I often hear “I don’t have time.”
I don’t doubt that. Many of us have VERY busy lives.
I know how it is when you have young children in the house.
I know how starting or owning a business is a time gobbler.
I know that some of you are furthering your education while you work and raise a family.
I know that everyone is different in many ways…
but I come back to the fact that everyone has exactly the same amount of time everyone else does. The master has given us exactly one life.
So I ask you..
are investing your time the way you want? Are you investing your time in a way that the master will pat you on the back and say “well done good and faithful servant?”
Or are you grasping tightly, desperately afraid that someone is going to steal your time? Are you desperately digging a hole where you can hide your time, hoping beyond hope that it will still be there when you get back? I’m sorry, it won’t be and the master’s words will not be kind.
It is great to have a habit of being financially generous, I am so grateful for that. But have you ever tried to teach a Sunday School class or lead VBS with just a stack of money, you can’t do it? It requires someone who has the habit of generosity with their time.
It is great to have a habit of being generous with forgiveness, but you can’t feed hungry people with an “I forgive you.” It requires someone who will be generous with their money AND their time.
It is great to be generous with your stuff like toothpaste for ingathering kits, but you can’t plan a worship Service on toothpaste it takes people being generous with time to sing, and read, and run technology, and play instruments, and usher, and greet, and clean the building, and pay the bills so we have a warm place to worship, and scoop the snow so we can get in.
The church could make do without a lot of things, but we can never make do without people like you who make a habit of being generous with their time.
What am I talking about? I am asking you to have a heart-to-heart with God about the way you spend your time. Everyone is different. You might get a “well done good and faithful servant” or you might feel a nudge toward being more generous with your time in some way.
And then it is a matter of habit. Remember the key to changing small habits. IF YOU WANT TO.
You can change the habit of saying no to the habit of saying yes. IF YOU WANT TO.
You can change the habit of heading home for a night of TV to the habit of heading to the church to spend an hour nurturing children in the faith. IF YOU WANT TO.
You can change the habit of grocery shopping on Sunday morning to shopping on Sunday afternoon so you can be a liturgist in worship once a month. IF YOU WANT TO.
The way we use our time is largely a matter of habit. And they aren’t usually big habits. They are little bite-sized habits that can be changed IF YOU WANT TO.
Remember the key phrase for changing little habits is IF YOU WANT TO.
Do you? DO YOU WANT TO? Do you want to be a better steward of the amazing gift of time that God has given each of us?
Generosity is like the little boy who got his hand stuck in an expensive vase. Eventually, his mother cringed and broke the vase to see the little boy tightly grasping a penny in his little fist. In holding on to the penny with a tight fist, he sacrificed the expensive vase.
Open your hand and share generously all that God has given you, and both the penny and the vase can be saved.
No comments:
Post a Comment