We’re recently started a new series called “reset”. In the first week, we talked about how Jesus makes it possible to reset all of life, giving us a fresh start in life that impacts every key area. We’re going to look at many of these in depth, and this week we see how Jesus resets our use of time.
There was a time in my life when I prided myself on never needing a day planner. I remembered everything I signed up for, and never double booked. That was high school. Ever since, I’ve found my time needed to be managed.
Through university, I started to rely on a day planner, an old fashioned spiral bound book. I got progressively busier, but could still say yes to pretty much anything I wanted. I would stay up all night getting things done if I needed to. I was young.
By the time I started working, I had to start making choices. I can only be in one meeting, one event, or one place at a time. When I first pastored a church, I was still working as a paramedic on the side, until I finally realized I simply didn’t have the time to do both things well. And still today, I find myself constantly choosing between demands on my time. It’s only escalated since having children.
I can go on. You probably can, too. Bottom line, unless we’re still kids, time is all about choices. It’s a limited resource – we can’t create it, we can only choose how to use it.
The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. ~C.S. Lewis
But what if you could reset your clock?
That used to be easy – whenever I’ve started a new job, I feel like it’s a chance to structure my time differently, within the constraints of set tasks, family and personal responsibilities.
But even then, it’s never clear what’s best. Read one thing that says “say yes to every invitation, you never know who you’ll meet” but then I’ll read something else that says I should learn to say “no” to more invitations to protect my sanity and family. Which is it?
With an extra hour, I don’t know whether I should work more, play with my kids, read the Bible, exercise, fix things around the house, or what. Someone will advocate that each one is most important. Time marches on.
Closely connected with goals, last week’s topic.
Question: What would you do with an extra hour in the day? Why? What would be your goal?
Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course. Register for you and a friend today and come Wednesday night!
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Hi. Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for the daily challenges. We’re in the middle of a series right now called Reset, where we look at how following Jesus resets our thinking about various topics in life. This week we’re thinking about how Jesus resets our view of society’s divisions.
The daily challenges are meant to help us explore what it means to follow Jesus, even in the midst of a busy commuting lifestyle. We have a rhythm that we follow each week to help us explore our topic. We introduce the idea on Monday, then Tuesday’s we study it in the Bible. Wednesday’s we try to let the Bible’s teaching sink in, and change and transform our thinking. Thursday’s we try to act out what we’ve been learning. Friday’s a day for prayer and reflection, and then Saturday’s a day for rest.
Sunday is a day for community, because even when we are scattered and busy, it is important that we come together as one community to explore Jesus and what it means to follow him in one place. That’s why this Fall we’re planning to launch a new worshiping community in Ajax called Redeemer Church. Stay tuned for more information.
Shortly after moving to GTA, my wife and I had dinner with some new friends. We had just moved from a small community in eastern Ontario, a mostly monocultural community where a handful of people had been to university.
We found ourselves at dinner with two people from South Asia, one from Finland, and one from east Asia. 3 of the 4 had PhD’s and the fourth had an MBA. After dinner we realized we really had arrived in the most multicultural city in the world – meeting men and women from every continent, of every class and education.
Ajax is this in microcosm. Ajax has the highest number of culturally visible population; 32,005 residents or 36%. Also, 17,055 who speak another mother tongue.
We may be used to such diversity here, but think big picture. We have a daily experience that would have required a lifetime of travel just 100 years ago. Whether we were born here or moved here, we encounter people who look different, sound different, have different traditions and cultures than ourselves every single day, and may not even notice.
Sure, it’s not all harmony. There are divisions here and elsewhere in the GTA, but by and large in Canada there is little tolerance for discrimination based on race, gender and social class. It still happens, but when it comes to light, most Canadians react with disgust. It hasn’t always been this way, and isn’t this way everywhere in Canada or in the world.
Just look at the divisions in Ukraine between those who identify with Russia, those who identify with Ukraine. Examples abound like this one. North American history was quite different just decades ago – with segregated schools, buses, and not long before, slavery.
Add in gender, class discrimination around the world, in our recent history, and still today in Canada, and we can see there are many divisions in our world.
What does a follower of Jesus do with these divisions?
Is Christian just one of those divisions? To be Christian, do we say we are nothing else? Does becoming a Christian mean every culture that doesn’t have a long Christian history is suspect? Some missionary efforts have indeed gone this way – bringing western culture with Christian faith as one package with no distinction, to which others must conform. That’s been terribly damaging, and doesn’t even take seriously Christianity’s history as a global and multicultural phenomenon.
Question: When you picture a Christian, what kind of person comes to mind? Do they have a certain ethnicity, social class or gender? What experiences led to that?
When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again?
The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate.
What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives:
Reset: Goals
Reset: Time
Reset: Money
Reset: Work
Reset: Body & Food
Reset: Sex & Marriage
Reset: Family
Reset: Compassion
Reset: Nature
Reset: Society
Reset: Death
Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.
