Book Review: Time for Every Thing?

Coming up to my holiday this year, I was getting stressed. The list of things to do kept growing, while the time and power and ability to do them all was diminishing with each day. I got there, and was able to get away and relax away from phones and emails and sermons. At just the right time, my review copy of Matt Fuller's new book 'Time for Every Thing? - How to be busy without feeling burdened' came in the post. The very book for me and my situation. And it really and truly was (and will be!).

This isn't a long book (which is a good thing, given its topic), but it's packed full of helpful advice and wise counsel, built solidly on biblical foundations. In the opening chapter, Fuller quickly diagnoses the problem. 'Time. I would love to have more of it.' Writing about the invention of the pocket watch, he comments, 'Ever since then, we've been able to carry around with us a ticking measure of the day's disappearance.' But even more importantly, 'what needs to change is how my heart views those hours.' While we try to pack too much in (or else waste it), building on Ecclesiastes 3, he writes, 'There may be a time for everything that God expects, but there is not time for every thing that could be done.'

The first part of the book lays the foundations. Through the chapters, we explore why we're feeling worn out and weighed down - and the burdens we need to lay down (religious rules, a need to prove myself, expectations, needs of others, and our own security); the rest that Jesus offers (rest in life, not from life), including a helpful mini Bible tour of the concept of rest, through creation, Sabbath, and the land. This chapter on rest also included the helpful insight that even the yoke of Jesus is good news - that he has laid out good works for us to do, in his steam, not our own.

There are some great pearls of wisdom as he thinks about trusting God in 'trusting work, not anxious toil' (Ps 127). The antidote to stressful toil is in 'knowing that the living God will provide what we need.' This runs counter to today's culture where being busy seems to be cool. This continues into the chapter on time wasting - which comes from both being idle or easily distracted, as well as focusing on the wrong things. Commenting on the parable of the talents, comes this gem: 'You can gain everything life has to offer, and have wasted your life.'

In the remaining chapters, Fuller walks the reader through priorities, work, family, church and leisure. The practical wisdom comes thick and fast, with lots to think about and apply. Rather than thinking that this book will enable us to find time for everything, he writes, 'How do we find time for everything? Well, the simple answer is: we don't - but there is time for every thing that God wants us to do.' Explaining the Ephesians 2:10 good works God has prepared for us in advance, we don't need to feel guilty over other good things which are left undone. He then sets out some principles based on the freedom to serve between the 'floor of obedience' and the 'ceiling of obedience' - to do less is sin, to go beyond is idolatry, but within those parameters there is freedom. This was very helpful to think through and apply.

The chapter on church was good, in showing the essential nature of meeting together - which even acts as a solution to the Sunday blues, because we see Sunday as the first day of the week, rather than Monday morning. The togetherness of church is emphasised, meeting together, asking who have you encouraged rather than what have I got out of it myself? Comparing and contrasting church with social media, the stand out line was: 'We need to meet, not just connect.'

The chapter on leisure was also good (and not just because I was coming into my holidays). The suggestion to find what is genuinely refreshing was helpful - and led to conviction over my poor camera, sitting in its bag having been neglected for a while. Hopefully I'll find time to get to know it again, to savour God's creation. As Fuller writes, 'Learning what drains us and what refreshes us makes a massive difference to how tired we feel.'

The final chapter provides the challenge to put in place the things we've learned throughout. 'What changes should I make in order to maximise my faithfulness in serving the Lord with the time he has given me?' While we can't do everything, Jesus says to do what you can (like the woman with the alabaster jar). And in doing it, be reliable and deliberate.

This was a great book. In my own case, very timely, providing both encouragement and challenge. Anyone could read it with profit, but particularly if you're feeling the pressure on your time and wondering what to do about it. Thank you to Matt Fuller for writing it and sharing the ideas, and thank you to The Good Book Company for the review copy.

Time For Every Thing? is available from The Good Book Company and in ebook format.

Watchnight Sermon: Psalm 90 Teach us to Number our Days

We’ve come to the last few minutes of 2014, and I can safely say that time is flying. It seems like no time at all since we were here for the watchnight service a whole year ago. Christmas came round quicker than ever. Just when we’ve finally got used to writing 2014, now we have to remember to write 2015 instead.

Time flying struck home with me the other week when I heard of one of the boys I taught in Sunday School, who, in my mind, must only be about 15, but he has recently qualified as a dentist. Where has all that time gone?

Here in this building, we’re aware of the passage of time. On the walls behind me are memories of my predecessors, including Morris Davies (rector a century ago). Generations have come and gone, and this same building has stood as the meeting place for the church family. Yet if that’s true for a building just over 200 years old, which seems so permanent to us, then just think how you would describe God. You would need the words that Moses says to God in verse 1: ‘Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.’ In every generation from our first parents, God has been there. He has been the background, our dwelling place. But more than that, ‘Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.’

From everlasting to everlasting you are God. As we mark the changing of the calendar, it’s good to remember that God is eternal, our dwelling place no matter what year it is. Moses draws out this truth, that God is eternal, in three distinct ways.

1. God is the one who calls time (3-4). It’s not just that we come to the end of our life and die, but that God is active - ‘You return man to dust and say, ‘Return, O children of man.’’ He is the one in control, ruling over the length of our life. He sees the end from the beginning. Even what seems like a very long time to us, a thousand years, God sees it just like yesterday. God is ruling over time.

God is the one who remains when all is swept away. Moses uses two pictures - a flood, and the grass. A flood sweeps away all in its path - just think of the images of the Boxing Day Tsunami (hard to think it was 10 years ago). He also points to the grass which pops up, flourishes in the morning, but then fades away by evening. Why does this happen with us? Why are the generations swept away? ‘For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.’ It’s not what we want to hear. Yet Moses draws out the anger and wrath of God. But what makes God angry? Why does he need to be wrathful? That brings us to:

God sees our sins. Sometimes we can do a good job of hiding our sins from other people. Sometimes we can look respectable. But God sees. God knows. God’s anger burns against sin - not an unpredictable anger that could lash out unexpectedly; but his settled, determined opposition to everything that is against him and his glory in creation.

Life in our sin-infected world is under God’s wrath. Our seventy or eighty years (or more, or less) are toil and trouble, quickly passing. The years fly by, and we fly away. With each passing year, our time is coming closer. Yet the key question comes in verse 11. Because life is like this: ‘Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?’

If life under the fall is set up like this, to remind us of our mortality, then how many actually stop to consider that? So many people are caught up in life, merely passing through without a thought of God, or of the purpose of life. So they party, get drunk, begin another new year with another hangover, resolving that this year things will be different.

But change only comes as we consider our short lives in the light of the eternal God. The answer comes with the plea in verse 12: ‘So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.’ Help us to see our time is short, and to take refuge in you, the everlasting to everlasting God. In this way, we become wise with God’s wisdom. So let’s begin the new year with this as our prayer. Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Show us that we aren’t God. Remind us that we can’t do it all ourselves. Take over when we try to manage the universe and take your seat, Lord. When we do this, then we can be satisfied with God’s steadfast love, morning by morning. To know that we are not God, but that the everlasting God loves us, and will keep loving us, this is where joy comes from. It will change our work, as we see God’s work and our place in it, and his grace on our lives. From everlasting to everlasting you are God. Lord, may we take refuge in your eternity; and find you sustaining us in our mortality, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This sermon was preached at the Watchnight Service in Aghavea Parish Church on Wednesday 31st December 2014.

Sermon Audio: 1 Peter 4: 1-11

On Sunday morning I was preaching from 1 Peter 4. In this passage, Peter reminds us that time is short, and how we use our time matters to God.

Resolved!

Do you make New Year Resolutions? If so, do you keep them?

What is it about the new year that makes us want to change something about ourselves, to have a fresh start, to try something new? Surely we can do these things at any time in the year, yet we wait until the New Year (capitalised) to make resolutions.

Normally I don't make any, well, at least not in a public organised way. I'm still not going to lay them out, but here's a few things I'm thinking of improving in this year of 2009.

Reading - 2008 was the first year I didn't keep meticulous records of the books I have read (see the 2007 list). I don't think I read as many books as in previous years either. So this will be a big thing - to make sure that I'm reading lots, and also retaining the stuff that has been read.

Photography - in recent months, my camera has been left sitting far too often. 2009 will hopefully be a year of improved photo-taking skills as well as more photos. I was even contemplating a photo-a-day series, but can't think of what to take a photo of today. Not a great start to such a scheme!

Weight - I'm slightly over what I should be according to the old BMI and would like to see a bit of an improvement. All told, I'm half a stone lighter now than I was this time last year, but there's room for more. More walking and less chocolate should help me in this area.

Music - having recently acquired a new iPod Touch, I'm going to discover lots of new and different music over the next wee while. Much better than just filling up the iPod with stuff I know already. Any recommendations gratefully received!

Ministry - I realise I have an awful lot to learn in ministry, and in my first full year of curacy (DV) I want to grow both as a Christian, and also as a pastor and preacher. (While this is last in the list, this is by no means the least!)

What are your resolutions?

Second year coming to an end

It's hard to imagine, but this is the last week of term in my second year at college. With only 10 more teaching hours to go, we should have most of the information and inspiration for the exams - which start in four weeks time. AAAAGGGHHHH!!!

After this week, we have three weeks of 'study leave', which is free to be spent wherever we decide, and then a week and a half of exams. So by 1st June I'll be free for the summer, and also will be a final year student (almost!)

I'll probably be in Dublin quite a bit of the three study weeks - I know if I were to be at home I would get no work done at all... instead going out for random drives and stuff. That's not to say it won't happen in Dublin too, but there's less chance of it.

In the middle week we also have the excitement of the Church of Ireland General Synod, this year being held in Kilkenny. I'll be there, representing the good folk of Dromore Diocese. Then on the Saturday following, I'll be back in Kilkenny for the Leahy - Avila wedding. Can't wait!

So now I need to get a prayer letter written - it's been a while since I managed to get one out, hopefully before Late Prise in the Chapel... and a few other matters to attend to. Like revision. Maybe!

British Summer Time

Or maybe you would prefer to call it Daylight Savings Time. No matter. Tis the same thing! It's always great when the clocks go forward and we have the light for longer in the evenings. On Sunday night it was nice to be sitting in the Cathedral for the evening service, and for daylight to still be streaming through the windows. Makes a change from the dark evenings of winter where we go into church in the dark...

The other thing about BST is that it can provide a laugh for churches! On Sunday morning I was preaching in Dollingstown and Magheralin (for the sermon, see the separate posting), and we were singing the final hymn, when in walked a family arriving (as they thought) for the start of the service. Guess they forgot to put their clocks forward! Then a family were telling me they had done the same in Dromore as well! But they didn't go in, they just drove past and on back home again.

However, there's almost a professional danger in British Summer Time for those working - what if the preacher forgets to set his clock forward, or sleeps in? Especially with an 8.30am Holy Communion service...