Laptop Batteries, Summer and Sabbath Rest

I do a dumb thing on a regular basis. My laptop gives me a warning that my battery is low and that I need to plug it in and recharge. But I ignore it. Then it gives me a "critical battery" message. I ignore that. Then, if I don't plug it in, it shuts down on me. It takes forever to reboot. I get annoyed. Rinse. Repeat.

You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now. I also think this is how many of us go through life: wait until the batteries are run down to critical and then recharge. Work, work, work like a dog and then finally take that grand summer vacation. But sometimes it's too late and so even the time off becomes toil and we resent how exhausted we are from vacation.

God offers us something different: a regular time to recharge, a sabbath rest. Better: God gives us a rhythm of life perfectly suited to how we are made as his glorious human creatures, a pattern of work and rest. Six days of work and a day of rest. (I suppose there is something to be said for a regular vacation or two after the pattern of the Jubilee Year, but that is a discussion for another day.) Rest. Recharge. Before the "critical battery alarm" goes off.

Another option, of course, is keeping the laptop plugged in all the time. No hassles with plugs or critical battery warnings. But the computer battery experts say: "Don't do it! You'll ruin your battery life. It won't hold a charge after a while." For me, this is analogous to the soul that seeks an "endless vacation" (I actually found a magazine with this title at a relative's house). Many of us have been there too: working only for the next vacation, the next break. T.G.I.F. Dreading Mondays. But this denies the goodness of work. Yes, work is tainted by sin, but it is first God's good gift to us.

There is even more good news. We believe that our Lord Jesus perfectly fulfills all of God's commandments, including the one about sabbath keeping. He is repeatedly confessed in the Scriptures as Lord of the Sabbath and he has more than a few things to say and do about it. He gets into trouble with the religious leaders for "breaking" the sabbath when in fact he is fulfilling it and deepening our understanding of it. And Jesus fulfills it perfectly and completely by resting on that Holy Saturday, the Sabbath of Sabbaths as the Lord of Creation rests in the tomb.

Because Jesus has fulfilled the Sabbath, we don't have to get bent out of shape or nitpick about the details of Sabbath keeping: Jesus has filled full the Sabbath and he invites us to drink deeply of Him. He is the Living Water. He is our Rest. Come to me, you weary ones, He invites us.

As summer seems to go by more and more quickly each year, what might it mean for us to embrace both the goodness of work and the blessedness of sabbath rest...before the critical battery alarm goes off?

Writing a Better Story with My Life

[Disclaimer: This blog post is part of an entry in a contest to win a chance to attend a workshop by Donald Miller in Portland. But it's probably something I would eventually write about anyway. So there.]

My wife and I often have a conversation about what we would do with several million dollars if we won the lottery. This is always a very theoretical conversation since we don't play the lottery for theological reasons. So perhaps the question should be: What would we do if a box of several million dollars was anonymously dropped at our back door?

My answer has always been that I would open a theological seminary here in NW Ohio. It would have a threefold focus: 1) to allow for post-graduate work for pastors and Bible teachers who want to go deeper in their studies, 2) to allow those considering the ordained ministry to obtain a theological degree as part the process to becoming pastors, and 3) to provide a robust yet accessible series of courses for interested folks of every stripe who want to grow deeper in their Christian faith.

Ideally, there would be a lot more cross-fertilization and conversation between these groups than traditionally happens at a seminary. My other concern is that many seminaries are quickly pricing out many of those who would love to go but cannot afford to. I would want it to be affordable, perhaps even indexing the tuition to income or ability to pay.

For my part, I wouldn't mind doing some of the administrative stuff, but my overall focus would be teaching and getting some world-renowned scholars as visiting professors. Why should the Ivy League schools have a corner on the market for the best and brightest theological minds of our time?

Of course, the real challenge these days for me is: Why should I wait for an anonymous package of several million dollars to arrive before living this story? Don't I believe that God's abundance is far greater than that? Don't I believe that the Holy Spirit is able to move mountains? So I continue to wait, to pray and to begin to live this "better story."

I am hoping that Donald Miller's conference will help me in couple of ways: 1) to help me begin to live a better story and to "live into" the better story that God desires for me and 2) to enliven my preaching and teaching to help those whom I am privileged to serve live better stories with their lives.

Here is a link to the conference web site.

And the video I am supposed to embed:

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

Overflow

This was the scene in my kitchen the other morning. I made a pot of coffee and went to the basement to switch the laundry. Not heavy multi-tasking, mind you. When I came up about 10 minutes later, this is what I found. A friend of mine on Facebook said it looked like a murder scene. Death by caffeine?

In my hurried state I had done everything to get the coffee ready (grind the beans, pour the water, turn on the pot)--except that I had forgotten to empty the coffee pot of the previous day's coffee. Result? Overflow. Serious overflow. Now I can sympathize a wee bit with BP.

The day before, in a discussion about preaching, a friend reminded me of the verse that says that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34, Luke 6:45). I looked at those verses again and the context speaks of good trees producing good fruit and bad trees producing bad fruit. In other words, whatever we are filling up is what is going to come out as overflow.

This whole coffee spill caused me to stop and take stock of a few things:

1. My busy summer. How do I get to a point where I'm doing so much? This photo is the result of multi-tasking that is not working. One thing at a time, I remind myself. Be present in each moment.

2. What am I filling my heart with? In my preaching and in my everyday speech and actions, my "overflow" will come from my heart. So what I am filling my heart with? How can I be more attentive to Christ's love for us so that when I speak, it is out of the overflow of the abundance of Christ's love for us?

3. The power of God to speak in the everyday and the ordinary. I am quick to caution those who come to me wanting a "burning bush" experience or a clear answer from God. When I think of Moses in the wilderness or Isaiah in the Temple or Elijah on the mountaintop, I'm not sure we want to ask for those experiences. A much harder task is being attentive to how God is speaking all the time in the everyday.

I'd love to have you over for coffee, but most of it's on the floor.