The Amazingness of Common Sense

Not sure that's a word - but it is now. If the prez can do it so can I.

For years, I've heard (and taught) that if you give time to God, he gives back to you. Pretty simple concept really:

1. It's biblical (we are taught to give our 'firstfruits' both in terms of money and resources, but also time).
2. It just makes sense.

If God is the God of all, and if God is the God that knows your comings and your goings and knows you inside out - doesn't it make sense that giving time to him, your first fruits (aka whenever you are most 'on') makes the most.....sense? If we are stressed to the max, have a boatload going on or are just overwhelmed, doesn't it make sense that the One who promises to calm the storm, who tells us he won't give us anymore than we can handle, who parted a friggin sea - MIGHT be able to help us out a little?

Yeah, it really does, doesn't it!

This week I got two rather large, although really small, glimpses of that in action. Monday's are typically my craziest days. Talk to write, admin to do, Monday night to prepare for. I always feel like it's just work work work, and I'm frazzled by the time 7:30 rolls around and I'm supposed to be 'on' for our meeting. This Monday I decided to do something that I never do, but should do regularly. I took a half day of 'retreat' - aka I jumped in the new Acura and cruised down to Jordan lake (about a 25 minute drive), then spent the next 2.5-3 hours walking the trails, sitting by the lake, praying, reading from Daniel; just being with God. As I drove home at about 12:30, I had such a sense of peace, a sense that God met me there, and a sense that He was actually doing stuff in my life. That night I delivered a talk from rote memory (for the first time), and really felt calm and present with Him the whole time, instead of focused on performance.

Then on Tuesday my afternoon randomly/divinely opened up. It was 75 degrees, Kim was out of town so I could do my administration that night, I decided to golf - because who wouldn't gove on Oct. 31st if it was 75 degrees? I'd never golfed alone before, and know how frustrated I can get sometimes, but really wanted to do so. So I did something that really is a testament to God's using the World to reveal Himself to us, not just stodgy meetings or typical 'religious ways.' I decided to pray for a different fraternity or sorority during each hole on the course. So over the course of the next 3 hours I did 4 things that rarely happen (unfortunately) in my life:

1. I prayed for basically 3 consecutive hours.
2. I took time out of 'work' to pray for the Greek system, regardless of their involvement with 'my' ministry.
3. I played a (mostly) calm and collected round of golf (I played through a foursome quickly and sliced a couple woods, leading to a 'shit' comment, then an immediate question as to how that fit into my prayer time).
4. I integrated faith and life in a very cool, freeing and life-giving way.

And the amazing thing about all of this is - that none of it is brain surgery. It all makes basic common sense. You give to God, God gives back to you, and in abundance sometimes. It was amazing how refreshed I felt in conversations, in administration, in my homelife, in my personal decisions - as a direct result of giving to Him first.

Martin Luther (he of that whole Reformation thing) once noted that had "so much to do (today) that I should spend the first three hours in prayer." And he was noted for doing so reguarly. Oh that we could give even a third of Luthers charge, or 4% of our day to spending with Him (and that I had remembered this on Wednesday and Thursday :))