Time to Pay Attention

Time is flying!

Let me back up. I started this post with a cliché, and a nonsensical one at that. I am sorry. I can do better. Time is not an object, and therefore cannot “fly”. It would make more sense if I said, “this computer is flying.” That would make more sense not because this computer is currently capable of levitating, but because in our imaginations we could picture a computer literally fluttering through the air. On its own, you see. Pigs flying makes perfect sense. Not because pigs fly but because pigs most certainly could fly if someone fashioned some fancy technology alongside their pathetic little tails. But time is not an object. To say time is flying would be like saying “physics is flying”. Um, no. Physics is a concept, a way to explain the universe. It and time are certainly doing a lot of things, whether real or imagined (think time travel). But not flying, and such a sentence is not even coherent.  

But my goodness, I digress. What I am trying to get you thinking about is the fascinating concept that we know of as time. It is my word for the year. What time is it? I have been attempting to answer that question for myself this year, not with an arbitrary accounting for where and when we are in the universe, but with a focus, courage, and humility to live in the moment and love, serve, think, and act in such a way that might, God willing, bring more hope and more Jesus to bear in our crazy world. As the “teacher” says in Ecclesiastes, “for everything there is a season, and a time for every manner under heaven.” If time is not an infinite concept – that is to say, if it was “created” by one who is not subject to its limitations – but is still a concept within our reality, than the way we think about it and act according to it is very important. And quite challenging. We say things like “time is flying by” or “where did the time go?”, and the angelic beings of heaven look at us as if we have two heads. As it happens, it is they who may themselves have two(or more) heads, but that is neither here nor there. They are right to think us crazy for such comments. Somewhere amid ignoring time, wasting time, “maximizing” time, and obsessing over time is the godly Christian life.

The Bible says, “make the best use of the time, for the days are evil.” That is true and helpful on one level, yet on its own it is out of context and a bit strange. Time cannot be “used” if it does not ultimately exist. The entire context in this passage in Ephesians 5 says, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Seems to me that “look carefully how you walk”, and “do not be foolish”, and “understand what the will of the Lord is”, are more practical and actionable imperatives than “make the best use of the time”. I could spend a mortal life trying to figure out what that is supposed to mean and, in the process, forget to watch my step and fall headlong into a puddle like some fool, thinking in God’s sovereignty that is what was meant to happen. Pity that would be.

Rather, so far this year I have discovered two main components of what I think is a start to a biblical understanding and application of time. I learn the most when I read, and in this case, I am partly regurgitating a combination of ideas from multiple books that until now were mashed painfully together within my head. Not literally, you see. I am using reading as a metaphor for eating, and the brain functioning as the stomach wait now that I try to explain it I realize the regurgitating verb ruins the entire metaphor in a somewhat graphic way. Sorry for the run-on sentence.  

This post is about the first of these two components: pay attention.

In the book of Jeremiah chapter 6 and verse 16 it says, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it; and find rest for your souls.’

In his book Recapturing the Wonder, Mike Cosper says about this verse, “It’s a call to stillness – to stand rather than continue our aimless wandering, to resist the momentum of our chaotic world and look, think, consider where we’re going and why. Hannah Arendt once wrote that we need to ‘think what we’re doing,’ saying that the problem of our modern age is thoughtlessness. We live busy lives, and our thoughtlessness allows us to continue to be carried along in the currents of an unreflective culture.”

Stop. Look. Think. This is what it means to pay attention. The result is rest for your soul!

STOP

What I see from this verse in Jeremiah is simply to stop; during a walk, driving a car, typing an email, even having a conversation (though be conscious of social cues). In order to pay attention to something or someone there must be a break for thought and reflection. Sleep is an unconscious break. We need periodic conscious breaks.

Stop scrolling. For just a bloody second. What are some things you have just seen? Does it make you sad, confused, excited, anxious, jealous? Marinate on that a bit. I check my email more times a day than I pray. That is wretched sin and in repentance I resolve to stop and change with the Lord’s help.

Stop working. For just a minute. How is it going? Are you working on the right things? Do you need help? Do you need a drink of water for goodness sake? Often I get frustrated at work when I have to go to the bathroom or when it is lunchtime, because I can’t “afford” to take a break and dread restarting what I was doing. I am hopelessly depraved and need Jesus to help me stop.

Stop multi-tasking. Matt Perman says, “Multi-tasking seems like a way to save time but actually costs more time and is, in fact, impossible. It is inefficient because it makes both tasks take longer.” I find myself creating distractions that aren’t necessary or important, and I can do so at the expense of ignoring quality time with my wife or daughter or co-workers. Do I really have to pick up that toy on the floor that I falsely perceive as a trip hazard on the way to getting the remote to change the channel, and in the process miss an adorable smile and giggle from my daughter? No. Do I really have to fill up my cup at the water cooler at the same time I am loading the Keurig and at the same time I am washing my coffee mug from the day before, and in the process not have the mental capacity to say hi to my co-worker who comes in the breakroom to get an apple from the refrigerator? No. I need to stop and pay attention.

Stop worrying. As Newt Scamander says, all worrying does is make you suffer twice. My wife graciously helped me see this year that I stress out about things that aren’t even a big deal. And with things that are, what is the point? We are born into trouble; worrying doesn’t change that!

LOOK

Why is it that when people say “don’t look now, but…” we always look? Yet when someone says “look at that…” we often act like we are looking but really aren’t? What is wrong with us?

Do you know that none of us were saved by Jesus who didn’t stop and look to Him? If we never saw Jesus by looking to Him we never received his saving grace. How could we have? Isaiah 45:22 (KJV) says, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” The famous Charles Spurgeon heard and obeyed this verse and was saved. He once said, “I looked and I looked until I almost looked my eyes away.”

Look at the created order. Cosper, referring to God’s answer to Job and his friends during Job’s suffering, says, “God doesn’t respond to Job’s misery with explanations or dismissive comments. Instead, he calls Job’s attention to the confusing wonder of the world we live in. He leads Job from the mystery of his suffering to the mysteries of creation, from puzzle to puzzle, from wonder to wonder. And as Chesterton puts it, ‘The secret of God is a bright and not a sad one.’ In the skipping of mountain goats, the thunder of snow, and the crashing of oceans, there’s a wink and smile, a God who is joyful and even playful in the midst of the madness. While we may not be able to comprehend it, there is – at least to God – sensibility and an order. The universe is a Cosmos after all, and Chesterton tells us its maker has a smile and a sense of humor, even as he reminds us of our smallness in its midst. He calls our attention from the midst of sorrows to the broader world where sorrows are one mystery among many.”

Look at the people around you. What are they thinking? What are their longings? How can you pray for or help them? Don’t just people watch but look at them. Don’t stare but look purposefully.

Look includes listening well. I was recently introduced to the concept of agile listening, and it was a breakthrough. True listening is not just trying harder and harder to hear and understand what someone is saying. It is strengthening new muscles to listen in different and more effective ways. Like reading, or writing, or typing, or grocery shopping, or really anything else – it is working smarter rather than harder. It is not doing the same thing multiple times or with more effort each time expecting it to improve but doing it differently so that it will improve. Robert Greenleaf, who is known for coining the term “servant leadership”, or at least making it popular in our era, once said that good listening means that “the automatic response to any problem is to listen first.” He goes on to quote St. Francis who famously prayed, “Grant that I may not seek so much to be understood as to understand.” Look by listening like that. I am writing to myself here.

Again I say, look to Him. A friend said this simple phrase to me recently as an encouragement and for accountability. It is so powerful and effective! Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall SEE God! Look to Him who can save and give eternal rest for your soul. Look to Him who is saving you and can keep you and present you blameless and with great joy to the Father who is mighty to be praised. Look!

THINK

In college during fraternity pledgeship I was forced in an “instruction session” (intentionally vague for legal reasons) to mimic The Thinking Man because I was so quiet. Thankfully I was clothed, unlike the famous sculpture. Bear with me as I digress again and attempt to make a point.

I thought for a while that my quietness was a bad thing and even something to be embarrassed by. Now I believe God has blessed me in such a way that an important part of the Christian life comes naturally to me. That is, thinking. That is, intentional reflection on the realities and events of life, using the Bible to frame and inform my thoughts (as opposed to using my thoughts to inform the Bible). Yes, it is true, I overthink often and there are serious downsides to this tendency (I’m working on it). Yet, I am thankful to be gifted in such a way by my Lord to have something to offer here, specifically as it involves a biblical perspective of time and the value of paying attention in the form of thinking. Here are some things I have learned:

Think purely. I used to think the biblical command to “take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ” meant only to dismiss impure thoughts and replace them with pure thoughts. It does mean that, kind of. It does mean to end up with pure thoughts. But I have found it doesn’t mean to simply remove the impure or irrelevant thoughts; it means to evaluate them, and understand them, and challenge them, and ultimately channel them towards something wholesome and pure. Thought issues are heart issues, and the biblical and gospel solution is not behavior modification but deep soul work. Think purely by taking your thoughts captive and channeling them towards obedience after careful examination.

Think clearly. Thinking takes time. I promise you have it. If you don’t spend time in thought, your mind will feel like a pillowcase of Halloween candy or a bag of dead leaves in Autumn. Overstuffed, no organization, no rhyme or reason, only confusion. The human brain, and the human soul, is not meant to consume temporal information and experience like it is collecting coins or stamps, never to be used again. It is meant to reflect on information and experience in an orderly way and connect dots, experience emotion, and serve others in constructive ways. An unclear mind is like a fancy computer system that cannot run queries or output reports; just a mess of information that makes no sense and that no one has access to anyway. Be thoughtful, that is “full of thoughts”, but take the time to translate those thoughts into something clear and useful. This will not happen automatically. Trust me! Why do you think I am writing this post?? Reference the brain regurgitating metaphor.

Think creativity. The ability to imagine is such a gift. I am going to be honest; if you have trouble or don’t enjoy the likes of Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, or other fantasy type stories (to use modern examples), I might gently challenge your healthy use of your God-given imagination. These types of stories, speaking from personal experience, unleash the imagination in a way that facilitates beautiful and constructive thought, which ultimately makes the true story of redemptive history revealed in the Bible and fulfilled in Jesus marvelous. I will rely on my British literary companions (and Tim Keller) here. They have so much to say on this matter, and it is GOLD.

Tolkien: "For creative Fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but a slavery to it. So upon logic was founded the nonsense that displays itself in the tales and rhymes of Lewis Carroll. If men really could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stories about frog-kings would not have arisen."

Chesterton: “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

Lewis: "I think it is possible that by confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming even happens, you would fail to banish the terrors and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable. For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones...It would be nice if no little boy in bed, hearing, or thinking the hears a sound, were ever at all frightened. But if he is going to be frightened, I think it better that he should think of giants and dragons than merely of burglars. And I think St. George, or any bright champion in armor, is a better comfort than the idea of the police."

Keller: "We love stories about victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. Or sacrificial heroism that brings life out of certain death. And we pay money to watch those kinds of movies, and we pay money to read about those stories...and modern people say life is not like that. But Tolkien points out that these are deep human longings. For some reason human beings in our day and time want the kind of stories that are very well told, that evoke secondary belief, that catch you up in them, that tell you that good will triumph over evil, that there is a supernatural world, that you're not stuck in time, that there is love without parting, that there is a way of escaping death; why would people still feel this way?...People know at the fact level that we're all going to die, that we will lose loved ones, or they will lose us. But underneath, all human beings feel that there shouldn't be death. Good should triumph over evil. This is how reality ought to be. This is why the stories that are popular are like fairy tales."

Think actively. Thinking should always lead to action of some kind, whether to pray, to apologize, to express love or praise, to serve, or just to continue in daily life with more joy in the Lord. The mind shouldn’t “wander”, unless it wanders towards something that is helpful to someone or glorifies God. I am lousy at this. A major sin area I am working on specifically in my marriage is passiveness in conversation and sanctification. God is calling me to and helping me be assertive. I need my thoughts to become words – of affirmation, of unguarded emotional processing – and actions, to serve others rather than settle in the false comfort of my own mind. That comfort is actually danger land.

Think purposefully. Limit daydreaming. Good thinking confirms and reveals the promises of God in Scripture fulfilled in Jesus. The Bible says we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds – purposeful thought. It also says we are being transferred from one degree of glory to another. Our thoughts, as part of our life, are taking us somewhere. Part of sanctification is growth in the “knowledge of the Lord”. It is progressive – albeit with valleys – but ultimately increasing. Let your thinking be part of that process, with the help of the Spirit.

Stop. Look. Think. Pay attention. But then what? The next post is about the second component relating to discerning the time: cultivate virtue.