Yesterday, my boss tells me he’s leading the company in the number of hours worked this month.  Of course he’s got a lot more responsibilities than I do, got a lot more invested and at stake in the company’s success.  In our conversation I throw out that old cliché about people on their deathbeds never look back wishing they’d worked more hours.  You have to balance work out with the rest of your life, find your priorities.  And that comment got me thinking about how I should be living my own life.  What are my “deathbed priorities”?

When I face God at the Judgment Seat, I want him to say that I’d completed the tasks he laid out for me.  I want to hear that “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  And that means I’d want to have cultivated a lot closer relationship with him now, here on earth, than I have.  I’d want to have listened more to those subtle promptings of the Holy Spirit to avoid those little traps I fall so easily into, to not say that one poisonous word of less-than-charitable gossip, to have said no to that second huge helping at the buffet, or to not have been so quick to say no to someone who could really have used my help at that inconvenient moment.

On the more human level, I’d want to have listened more to the ones I love.  I’d want to have been more interested, and expressed more love, spent more time with them, and less watching TV.  I’d want to have been more helpful to others instead of being too busy.  A little less focused on my needs, my goals, and been a little more self-sacrificing. I’d give up that grudge and forgive more quickly, more easily.  “Whoever wants to find his life must first lose it.” 

I admit: I suck at this.  I’m self-absorbed much of the time, insensitive (and over-sensitive), and, okay I’ll say it, most times just plain lazy.

But for the sake of leading a worthwhile life, I want to focus more on some of those things I’d do if I had one month to live.  I’m going to give God a few more minutes a day of dedicated one-on-one time.  I’m going to pay more attention to my friends, listen more and be interested in their lives, their goals, and let them know they’re important to me.  Love God, love others.  One little bit at a time.

Just thought I’d put that out for consideration …

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For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph 2:10)

One of the posters expressed his shock that his conservative Baptist church actually embraced and taught evolution.  His words sent chills down my spine — but probably not for the reason you might guess.  I don’t like secularists teaching theology, and I don’t like preachers or laymen “teaching” science. It’s not a matter of separation of church and state or anything high-minded like that.  It’s simply a matter of expertise.  Growing up in a conservative church, I heard a tremendous load of garbage coming from Sunday School teachers and from the pulpit itself whenever the teachers stepped outside the domain of their authority (Scripture and doctrine) and ventured untrained into the sciences.  It was the blind leading the blind.  Or worse, the blind locking the doors on searchers of truth. Images of bishops debating Galileo flash across my mind.

There is a huge number of believers well schooled in the sciences out there, real Christian scientists, but the rest of us are just interested dilettants, hobbyists. It’s a fun topic to explore, to discuss the implications. In fact, it’s healthy to openly discuss and debate these ideas.  But can we agree that such discussions should never occur from the pulpit?  When people — when we — stand in that position, we assume the mantel of divine authority. And in such a position, I would hope we would stay within the realm of that authority: Scripture, sound doctrine and theology. Our role is to lead others to God, to instruct them in the things of God and help them grow.  Not try to debunk the latest scientific trends.  Teach Genesis, teach creation, teach the principles the God of the universe would have us learn from Genesis.  But if it’s not described there, then as teachers of others, let’s not jump into it.

Okay, that’s my rant for the day. Why should preachers or teachers lose their source of power and step into an area of impotency?  

But for the rest of us hobbyists outside the pulpit, let the discussions continue …

Steve