Josh Harris, in Dug Down Deep: Building Your Life on Truths That Last
Being a Christian means being a person who labors to establish his beliefs, his dreams, his choices, his very view of the world on the truth of who Jesus is and what he has accomplished—a Christian who cares about truth, who cares about sound doctrine.
Acts 18:25: “[Apollos] spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus.”
Acts 18:26: “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”
The other day I came across a good TED video of Barry Schwartz discussing the importance of making sure we don’t substitute following rules for using our good sense and practical wisdom. The great irony, he points out, is that rules can become a substitute for wisdom, and this, in turn, demoralizes people. Thus, ironically, rules can actually undermine virtue. Here’s the summary:
Barry Schwartz dives into the question “How do we do the right thing?” With help from collaborator Kenneth Sharpe, he shares stories that illustrate the difference between following the rules and truly choosing wisely.
It’s not that rules are always bad in themselves. But “they are like notes on a page — they get you started.” What we need are not people who thoughtlessly just follow the rules in spite of what the true intent may be and a spirit of mercy and generosity (see the Sermon on the Mount — we are to be more than just by being merciful as well), but rather people of virtue who apply the rules wisely while knowing how to exercise judgment, not just follow a script.
This reminds me of the time I went on a long bike ride, forgot my shirt (it was hot out), and well into the ride when I was really thirsty a gas station attendant wouldn’t sell me Gatorade or water because of the “no shirt, no shoes, no service rule.” (You can read about that here, along with the management lessons I draw out). Maybe that’s a good rule in general, but this was a clear case of a rule inadvertently being used in a way that denied the opportunity to serve a genuine case of human need (even if it was my mistake to forget my shirt and not take along more water!).
Here’s Barry Schwartz’s video:
From Life Together:
After the first morning hour, the Christian’s day until evening belongs to work. “People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening” (Ps 104:23). . . . Praying and working are two different things. Prayer should not be hindered by work, but neither should work be hindered by prayer. Just as it was God’s will that human beings should work six days and rest and celebrate before the face of God on the seventh, so it is also God’s will that every day should be marked for the Christian both by prayer and work. Prayer also requires its own time. But the longest part of the day belongs to work. The inseparable unity of both will only become clear when work and prayer each receives its undivided due. Without the burden and labor of the day, prayer is not prayer; and without prayer, work is not work. Only the Christian knows that. Thus it is precisely in the clear distinction between them that their oneness becomes apparent. . . .
The unity of prayer and work, the unity of the day, is found because finding [God] behind the day’s work is what Paul means by his admonition to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). The prayer of the Christian reaches, therefore, beyond the time allocated to it and extends into the midst of the work. It surrounds the whole day, and in so doing, it does not hinder the work; it promotes work, affirms work, gives work great significance and joyfulness. Thus every word, every deed, every piece of work of the Christian becomes a prayer. . . . “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col 3:17).
I feel like I could write a trillion words on the subject, and I hope to write on this in more detail in the coming months (we’ll see). Ajith Fernando captures the essence of my thoughts very well in his article To Serve is To Suffer. He’s hitting a note that you rarely see these days, and I think he’s right on:
I have a large group of people to whom I write asking for prayer when I have a need. Sometimes my need is overcoming tiredness. When I write about this, many write back saying they are praying that God would strengthen me and guide me in my scheduling. However, there are differences in the way friends from the East and some from the West respond.
I get the strong feeling that many in the West think struggling with tiredness from overwork is evidence of disobedience to God. My contention is that it is wrong if one gets sick from overwork through drivenness and insecurity. But we may have to endure tiredness when we, like Paul, are servants of people [emphasis added].
The New Testament is clear that those who work for Christ will suffer because of their work [emphasis added]. Tiredness, stress, and strain may be the cross God calls us to. Paul often spoke about the physical hardships his ministry brought him, including emotional strain (Gal 4:19; 2 Cor 11:28), anger (2 Cor 11:29), sleepless nights and hunger (2 Cor 6:5), affliction and perplexity (2 Cor 4:8), and toiling — working to the point of weariness (Col 1:29). In statements radically countercultural in today’s “body conscious” society, he said, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16); and, “For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you” (2 Cor 4:11-12). I fear that many Christians approach these texts only with an academic interest, not seriously asking how the verses should apply in their lives.
The West, having struggled with the tyrannical rule of time, has a lot to teach the East about the need for rest. The East has something to teach the West about embracing physical problems that come from commitment to people. If you think it is wrong to suffer physically because of ministry, then you suffer more from the problem than those who believe that suffering is an inevitable step on the path to fruitfulness and fulfillment. Since the cross is a basic aspect of discipleship, the church must train Christian leaders to expect hardship. When this perspective enters our minds, pain will not touch our joy and contentment in Christ. In 18 different New Testament passages, suffering and joy appear together. In fact, suffering is often the cause for joy (Rom 5:3-5; Col 1:24; James 1:2-3).
In short, suffering is not just persecution. As Paul’s own example shows, it is also the pain, tiredness (2 Cor 6:5 — even “sleepless nights,” in which I would also include all-nighters), seasons of extensive work (2 Thessalonians 3:8; 1 Thessalonians 2:9), confusion (2 Cor 4:8), emotional pressure (2 Cor 11:28; Gal 4:19), and “non-mind-like-water” mental “weights” that come our way as we are simply being faithful. These things are not automatically signs that we are working too hard. They are often part of the path, and they are supposed to be.
Dave Harvey’s excellent book, Rescuing Ambition, releases next month. Through the end of Friday, you can pre-order it for 35% off at Crossway’s microsite.
Harvey argues that ambition needs to be rescued from a false understanding. We tend to think of it “as nothing more than the drive for personal honor or fame.” And ambition that terminates on ourselves, to be sure, is dishonorable. But ambition directed towards a purpose larger than ourselves — ambition for the glory of God and the good of the world — is not only good and right, but essential.
Ambition in this sense is a God-implanted drive to improve, produce, develop, create, and make things better. When ambition dies or is neglected, big dreams die. And when big dreams die, the world misses out, and we fail to realize the full potential that God has given us.
I think that Harvey is right on in this. We have let ambition lie neglected, and as a result have become too accustomed to dreaming small dreams. By rescuing ambition, Harvey encourages us to dream big dreams that are worthy of a big God, instead of being content with life as usual and the status quo.
(This is very related to the topic of productivity, by the way, because ambition drives productivity. Further, I argue in the about page that productivity is not simply about our own personal effectiveness, but is ultimately about helping to make our places of work, our communities, and society more effective. The kind of ambition that Harvey is talking about fuels the drive to be productive in this holistic way. Without ambition, you are more likely to be concerned merely with your own productivity, which aborts the whole concept and turns it inward. Productivity is really about making things better in all areas of life — especially our work, communities, churches, and society.)
So I’m very excited about Harvey’s book. Which makes it fitting that this is the first book for which I have written a blurb. Here’s the blurb I wrote for the book, which sums up my above sentiments:
Dave Harvey teaches us that God wants ambition back in our understanding of godliness and spiritual health. As Christians, we are to be zealous for good works (Titus 2:13) — that is, ambitious for them. We are to be people who dream and do big things for the glory of God and the good of others. This is a critical book for the church today because it helps us recover the spirit of William Carey, who ambitiously said ‘Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.
For more on ambition, let me also recommend John Piper’s sermon Holy Ambition: To Preach Where Christ has not Been Named.
Aaron Patzer, the founder and CEO of Mint.com, gives his thoughts on why he is excited about Mint.com’s acquisition by Intuit (the makers of Quicken).
Mint.com needs to offer two more features to be most useful, in my opinion: (1) the ability to delete the default categories (currently you can create new categories, but can’t delete the ones you don’t want) and (2) the ability to split transactions.
Without those two features, we can’t use it to keep track of our budget. For example, if Heidi goes to Target and buys groceries, toys for the kids, and a DVD, it all gets classified into a single category. You can’t split that transaction into the respective categories that reflect your actual purchase. That makes it impossible to track the grocery budget accurately.
Mint.com is great on so many other fronts. But without those two abilities, it is is simply not functional for us. Hopefully with this acquisition, those functions will be added to it.
By the way: I use the Windows desktop version of Quicken, which does offer the ability to split transactions and delete the default categories that you don’t want. But it has the drawback of only being accessible on a single computer.
So, for example, Heidi has to come to my computer to see our budget status or update any information, since we have Quicken on my computer (I run Windows on my Mac so that I can use Quicken). If we put it on her computer, on the other hand, I wouldn’t be able to see our data or update any information without going to her computer.
So the ability to keep this data online is very important. The unfortunate thing is that no online programs (not Mint.com, Quicken Online, iBank, nor anything else) offer both of the two critical functions mentioned above. On the other hand, the desktop version of Quicken does, but since it is not online the data is not easily accessible within a family.
Intuit can solve this problem by simply taking Mint.com and giving it the two critical features that made the desktop version of Quicken so effective: the ability to create and delete categories at will (including the bad default categories that come baked in) and the ability to split transactions.
Update
My readers have pointed out below that Mint does in fact have the ability to split transactions. So I (gladly) stand corrected. Thank you!
I don’t know if this feature did not exist the last time I gave Mint a detailed look, or if I simply failed to notice the way they’ve implemented it. Either way, this is great news and has me giving serious consideration to Mint now.
Even though we are in the midst of a recession, I’m going to have to say yes.
Last month I bought some neat-looking letter holders from IKEA to maybe serve as our new in boxes upstairs. However, my wife graciously pointed out to me that they simply will not go with our decor.
So I put it on my errands list to return them. One month later, they are still there. I think I am going to have to delete the errand throw away the bins.
IKEA is about 24 miles away from our house. Not too far, but returning them will be an investment of at least an hour round trip, plus an additional 15 minutes of lost time on each side. I think the total cost for the bins was about $12.
If I had other things to do over at IKEA or the Mall of America, it would make sense to group this with those other things, thus making the trip worth it.
But at this point I don’t have other things that will take me to the area. I would argue that making a special trip — taking 1.5 hours out of my life (plus gas) in order to get that $12 back — would actually be the wasteful thing.
Time is scarce, and the true cost of that trip is in the things I wouldn’t be able to do with that 1.5 hours instead. I can think of a whole host of more valuable things to do than spend 1.5 hours to save $12. I’m not saying that $12 is inconsequential; I’m saying that returning them would take away from things of even greater consequence, which are worth more than $12.
More than this, there is simply the sheer complexity of life. It will simplify my life to stop having to pay attention to whether I have a reason to head over to IKEA. That’s worth $12 to me as well. In an age where we are pulled in so many directions, a major guiding principle needs to be: minimize complexity.
So, into the trash can these in boxes will go. Actually, for those who were slightly horrified that I suggested throwing them away, what I’ll actually do is put them into our “to give” box, so that they’ll end up at the local Goodwill.
But I mention the possibility of throwing them away to underscore the importance of minimizing the complexity of life. Reducing complexity in your life is more important than a $12 physical good.
Anyway, they’re off to Goodwill. And next time, I won’t make this mistake. Always learning…
For the last ten years, I’ve used Quicken to manage our finances. Last summer when I switched to a Mac, I discovered that the Mac version of Quicken is a much reduced version that is just not up to snuff. So rather than downgrading, I continued to run the Windows version of Quicken on my Mac via VMWare Fusion (which, in my opinion, is the best way to run Windows on your Mac).
This works well enough, but I still find myself wishing that I didn’t have to boot up Windows on my Mac just to manage my finances.
Here’s some possible good news: It looks like Quicken may soon be coming out with a much improved program for the Mac, called Quicken Financial Life for Mac. It’s due out this summer. The website states:
If you know your Mac, you know Quicken Financial Life. Designed from the ground up to unleash the power of the Mac, Quicken Financial Life for Mac brings you the clean graphics and intuitive functionality you expect from Apple software. Built for Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard and newer operating systems.
Hopefully this will be good. Although I don’t know why they didn’t just do it right the first time.
What financial management software do you recommend for the Mac?