Investing time

It is often said that the one thing of which everyone has an equal amount is time. The rich have no more than the poor in a day. On this footing, at least, we are equal.

Jesus often told stories that emphasized our role as stewards, those who care for something that belongs to one greater than us. So it is worth considering our stewardship of time. Each of us is given the same amount with which to honor the Master. Do we invest that time? Or hoard it? Or squander it?

Not long ago I was writing a blurb for a piece on Tumblon explaining my decision to leave teaching in order to provide full-time care to my daughter while my wife completed her pediatric residency. I discovered that the most helpful expression to describe what I had done was this: I took a child care leave to invest three years in my relationship with my daughter. It was a calculated investment. The return on that time spent loving and nurturing my child was far greater than what I could have "earned" as a teacher.

That experience has led me to ask more often: How am I investing my time?

Love your neighbor as yourself

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

One of the reasons that I am passionate about gospel entrepreneurship is because this dual mandate is at its core. When we create meaningful work that allows and calls us to love God with all our heart, and our neighbors as ourselves, we can work with joyful abandon. There need be no conflict between our vocation and mission, because vocation can fulfill our mission.

That's why I love working on tumblon. I am convinced that loving my neighbor means doing what is best for that person in the long haul. And I am further convinced that equipping parents to fulfill (and enjoy) their responsibilities is the most powerful mechanism of love . . . and justice.

The first five years set the trajectory of a child's life. It is during these years that her character, personality and abilities are most definitively shaped. She can learn a strong sense of integrity, truth and justice - or learn to treat these with contempt. Take, for example, Ruby Bridges. As a six year old, she was "integrated" into a white school. Her parents' love and care for her during those critical first years of life bore fruit, by the Holy Spirit , in love and justice. She loved and prayed for the people who hated her; she was courageous when surrounded by cowards. By God's grace, she was an instrument of love and justice in our society. Equipping parents to love like that is what I aim to do.

Here is the logic:

1. Love does what is best in the long haul.
2. Parents are the most important figures in a child's life.
3. Equipping parents promotes:
1. Character formation, which results in good citizens.
2. Personality shaping, which results in healthy relationships.
3. Ability development, which results in contributions to society.

Love treats people (both parents and children) as responsible agents, not as mere objects of pity or contempt. As such, it calls them to responsible behavior, and provides what is needed to fulfill that call.

That is precisely where the gospel speaks. I know no better instructor in humility than parenting. We discover more darkness in our hearts in impatience and selfishness, and feel equally powerful desires for good for our children. The answer to both of those feelings - our need, and desire - is Christ.

I have much to learn yet about how to faithfully do what I do; but I honestly can't imagine a better vocation than daily learning how to call people to Christ, and equip them to love their children.

Governed not by envy

"What would an encounter of the gospel with our post-Enlightenment cultured involve for the public arena - the political, economic, and social aspects of our life?" (Foolishness to the Greeks p95)

I think about that question daily. Where are the places that the good news of Christ calls political, economic and social life into question? As I ask the question, I hear the answer, "Everywhere!"

Recently I read in Ecclesiastes 4:4

"Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind."

To be born again by the Spirit is to be born to a new reality that is no longer governed by envy. Toil and skill are no longer the servants of envy, but the servants of love. When Christians engage in the economic life of their society, we ought to do so in a way that demonstrates a radically different relationship to work. Our toil and skill should be engaged to love our neighbors as ourselves - to seek their good as ours, rather than to desire their good for ourselves.

To live in this way is to blaspheme Adam Smith's doctrine of the invisible hand. It proclaims that the way the betterment of the public life consists not in each person seeking his own private gain, but in each person seeking the good of his neighbor - and that the miracle of new birth is essential for this reality to take hold. This is our call to conversion, the call to the Kingdom of God.