Last week, I shared that a 2005 StatsCan study revealed 61 per cent of rural residents knew all of their neighbours, but only 16 per cent of those living in major urban centres did.
This isn’t terribly surprising. Do you have a hard time remembering names in the first place? I certainly do, even though I know I shouldn’t. Sometimes I forget the moment someone tells me…I was too busy thinking about what to say next!
But names are important. According to a Lifehacker blog post, “a person’s own name is the single most important word to him/her; it is intimately tied to his/her identity as an individual. How you deal with people’s names can have a profound effect on their impressions of you: Think about the times you’ve felt special when someone you admired addressed you by your name in a sincere tone; or think about the times when you’ve felt belittled when someone negligently called you by the wrong name, or worse, maliciously made fun of your name in front of you.”
But something so important is also so easily forgotten. Sometimes it’s physiology, since “names are among the first things to go as our brains begin shrinking — by about half of one per cent annually — starting as early as our thirties.”
People come up with all kinds of strategies for remembering names. Personally, I write the name down as soon as I can, since it helps me most to see the name in print somewhere. It works for me, but maybe not you.
Question: How well do you remember names? What strategies help you?
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“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:24 ESV)
Illustrate with two cups (money, God) beside each other. Can only fill one.
Remember Monday – I asked you to list your priorities in order. One per rank, no ties.
Illustrated with stacked cups.
Still can only fill one. And money isn’t the only thing we can prioritize in life, it’s just one of the most common, and Jesus said it was one of the most seductive challengers to God’s place in our lives.
Almost effortlessly it is able to lure us into its sphere of influence. When we grow from dependent children into adults, before we know it, we are living lives in its service. It calls us, it drives us, it threatens us, it rewards us. We don’t know if we have enough here, too much there, need to make more, invest more or borrow more.
Money is a deep rooted power. It reaches to the very centre of who we are and what we live for – the heart and eye we spoke of yesterday. Jesus ascribed to money almost ultimate power. “No one” he said “can serve two masters, one cannot serve God and money.” You can only serve one master faithfully.
This isn’t about taking on two jobs – he deliberately uses the language of slavery from his culture – where people sold themselves, in entirety, to pay off a debt – and could naturally not sell a second “self” to someone else. Jesus says money has that kind of demand on our lives – it is the most likely thing to challenge God in our lives.
The point he was leading to was this: You cannot serve both God and money! If God and the vision of God’s reign is not the ultimate focus of our lives, something else will be. For many of us the something else will be money in its various forms. Money has a power all of its own. It has the power to take the very place of God in our lives. Money can lure us into its service.
But putting God as our first priority doesn’t mean we deny our children, spouses, and other good things in our lives. God made them, said they were good. This is not an either/or. God wants to fill every area of our lives with his love, his power, his leadership.
Illustrated with four cups on level 1, and a full God cup on level 2. Pouring water into God’s cup overflows into the others.
When we start to open ourselves to God, welcoming the reality that he poured himself out for us by dying on the cross, we quickly find he pours out into all areas of our lives, and then into others.
People who give of their time in service of others will tell you time and time again how incredibly fulfilling it is…that happiness doesn’t come from wealth, financial or otherwise, but rather because they have handed over all areas of their lives to God’s care as Lord. They are able to be contented and happy in all things, and that is a kind of wealth in itself that overflows into all area of life.
Challenge: Take another look at your list of priorities from Monday. What does Jesus’ teaching in the sermon on the mount say to you about each of these? Have any of them been prioritized over God’s will? IF so, ask God to be Lord over, and pour into that area of your life.
