Commitments

I was thinking this morning about "Commitments" as I was emailing someone to cancel a commitment I had made before. You see, my beautiful wife does not want to have the baby when she is supposed to (last Friday), so now I have to change my schedule around and not do some of the things that I thought I would be able to do!

So, as I was cancelling this commitment, I asked myself this question (actually somebody else asked me the question) What Would Jesus Do? First of all, I realized that Jesus wouldn't have gotten His wife pregnant, as He did not have a wife - but that's another story. But I started thinking about what kind of commitments Jesus had made, or what kind of scheduled appointments that He had. These are the scheduled commitments that I see that Jesus made: His birth, Going to Jerusalem at the appropriate set times for the Jewish feasts, His triumphant entry into Jerusalem (fulfilling the prophecy of Daniel), and then of course the Cross and Resurrection. Those events in His life all had specific dates attached to them. Other than those 5 things however, I don't see that He "Scheduled" anything more into His life.

I was looking at Matthew 5:1, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, and it starts off with: "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit..." And for the next three chapters, the greatest sermon in the history of the world was preached. My point is this: If Jesus had the schedule today that most Christians had, He would not have been able to deliver that sermon. It might have read, "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain to lose them, running late for a preaching engagement in Nazareth."

So, after considering Jesus for a bit, I decided to go to the Apostle Paul. Now, Paul was a bit less scheduled than Jesus. He, like Jesus (though I didn't mention it above), seemed to schedule his sabbath days to be in the synagogues. Other than that though, the only other time sensitive thing I could think of was when he wanted to get back to Jerusalem at the set time of Passover. Paul didn't move without purpose, but I see him always as leaving himself "free" to move as God wanted him too.

I don't have answers today (because I'm too busy to think about it!), but I do know that it is a problem in my life when I do too many other things, and I end up staying up too late and not able to wake up early to meet my appointment with God.

In America today, it is almost a sin to miss or be late for an appointment. The reason being, you've commited to something, you've given your word to it. In most other cultures in the world, if you set a time for something, that really is just giving an idea of when things will take place. If in Guatemala we are going to meet at the park at 2:00, that really means sometime in the afternoon. To my limited knowledge, every where else in the world this is acceptable, just not in America. Could it be that the less restrictive "I'll get there when I get there" is actually the better method to take than the "you better be there 10 minutes before the time given" method? I know that it doesn't work in this culture, I'm just wondering if that's a flaw in our culture. We do need to remember that God's design for us takes precedence over culture.

Be still and know that I am God. At the same time, Always abounding in the work of the Lord, for your labour is not in vain in Him. I suppose Mary & Martha's example would be applicable in this story too...

Anyway, I didn't have time for a real lunch today because I was too busy - had too many commitments - but I wanted to write something on it. Priorities is another topic that should be considered along these lines.

Be still and know that God is God. Blessed is the man who meditates in God's law day and night. And Work and Occupy 'til He comes...