We’re recently started a new series called “reset”. Last 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, starting this week with how Jesus resets our goals.
When my wife and I were having our first baby, we were encouraged to write birth plan. This is where you write down a plan for who’s in the room, and make choices about everything from epidurals to breastfeeding to how bright the lights should be.
I know someone who works closely with an OB, and she has some wild stories about how people let some of the small choices get in the way of the big picture. In a perfect, routine childbirth, a parent’s ideal may be to have the lights just so, no pain with no drugs, and a favourite song playing at the exact moment the child is born.
But when things don’t go perfectly, there are some people who forget the point, or the goal. They start to argue for their personal preferences, instead of arguing for a baby’s health.
When my wife and I were writing up a birth plan, we decided to stay goal focused. The goal was to have a healthy child. All our personal preferences, hopes and dreams for the birth experience were going to be expressed, but we’d drop them in an instant if things were going wrong.
That was a moment we reset our goals…to make sure they were focused on the right thing. It’s not a bad thing in life to regularly reset our goals, and ensure we’re focused on the right ones. Not just in childbirth.
We can get so bogged down in day to day tasks we forget the point in our careers. Do we live to work, or work to live?
I heard a TED Talk (attached) that shared the job description of a hospital janitor. It was what you’d expect – mop, clean, scrub, restock. It had nothing at all to do with hospital patients and healthcare. But some psychologists interviewed hospital janitors. They met one who told them about how he stopped mopping the floor because a patient was walking slowly down the hall. Another told them how she ignored her supervisor and didn’t vacuum the visitor’s lounge because there were some family members who were there all day, every day.
In the drudgery of cleaning, these janitors remembered the real goal of the hospital, and perhaps even of their human race. They reset their goals to be about more than cleaning, but about caring for others.
Question: When have you had to reset your goals? Why did you do it?
Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community – so check out today’s reading here.
Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting this Wednesday, January 22nd. Register for you and a friend today!
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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Jesus is challenging those who pray in public in order to get ahead, to look religious.
He says they got the reward they wanted, immediately. People saw them, were impressed. Done.
Problem is, empty reward.
What is God's reward for prayer?
It's him. A relationship with him.
This happens to be what true prayer is about anyway…talking to God…spending time with him.
God makes himself, the reward, available to all who will receive him.
Closet prayer is like training, shutting out all ulterior motives until we learn to pray for God alone.
God is the best spectator for prayer - he sees prayer and motive.
Even the worst prayer - God sees the right motive.
Even the best prayer - God sees the wrong motive.
The word "closet" in this reading is not where someone kept their clothes. It comes from the Greek "tameion" which means storeroom. This suggests there are immediate "treasures" when you pray for God alone.
When we pray for God and God alone, we are seeking God, and he is ready and willing to hold up his side of the relationship by giving us what we were seeking.
When we pray for others to see, we’re clearly not seeking God but our own benefit, so he gives us that reward we sought, but that's all.
If we want applause, he says we can have it. But we're settling for second best.
I once got a phone call, informing me that someone was taking Christianity 101 student because he wanted to be baptized in hopes it would helps him immigration case.
In the end, I was happy for him to take the course, and would even baptize him if he decided to follow Jesus as his Lord. Those things are highly rewarding in and of themselves! An eternal relationship with God through Jesus Christ – nothing is more rewarding.
What about the immigration thing? I doubt it would have helped. One might have a case as a persecuted refugee if they were a baptized Christian at home, before coming to Canada. But immigration authorities probably wouldn’t care if he was baptized in Canada last year.
If he took my course, and was baptized, all because he wanted to improve his chances at immigration, he would quickly discover it was an empty reward, nowhere near as good as the real reward.
We settle for second best sometimes.
We pursue rewards in life, on earth, when we could be pursuing rewards in heaven!
We can do this with prayer. We say a bunch of things about God, and call it prayer, when we could be talking to God.
We say some words we don’t really believe, simply because someone told us we should.
Question: Have you ever tried to regularly spend time in prayer alone with God? What did you find easy comfortable, or difficult and uncomfortable about the experience?
