Friends

Yesterday I had opportunity to eat lunch with a couple of guys that I have known since my college days. While we have not always been in close proximity to one another, we have for the last four years. Our lunch conversation focused on areas of common interest with a joke or two thrown in for good measure. I suppose it was while I was driving home that it struck me just how important it is to have friends.

Maybe that is one of the reasons that fellowship is such an important part of church. I suppose we could get the information that we receive in Sunday School or worship from television or by reading a book, but that interactive element would be missing.

Thinking of friendship, and its role in Christian discipleship I think it is pretty clear that we need it. I have to admit that my friends have been a help to me in terms of my Christian walk. Now, this is not some sort of accountability group where you expect that sort of thing. No, this is just people who care about me manifesting that concern. I am grateful for it, and I have to hope my friends get as much benefit from knowing me as I do from knowing them.

There Is Power!

Currently, I am reading a book by Chuck Swindoll entitled, "Flying Closer To The Flame." I'm only about half way through, but it seems to me that Dr. Swindoll wrote this book to correct an error which he sees in the evangelical church. From his perspective, there is so much fear of "wild fire" when it come to the Holy Spirit that, many evangelicals act as though the Spirit is not part of the Trinity. No, we are not about to change our doctrinal statements, but in practice we are nowhere close to what the New Testament says we can have.

I think that the esteemed president of Dallas Seminary may be onto something. Let's face it, the Charismatics are all over religious TV and some of them are just down right strange. I don't want to be associated with them, but has my fear of that kept me from a balanced appreciation for the ministry of the Spirit? I think it has. That is why I have begun making a study of what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit and, to the best of my ability, I intend to personally apply it.

One illustration that Swindoll used made me smile even as it made its point. I know there is power in the Spirit, just like I know there is power in an electrical outlet. I know it abstractly, intellectually. If I were to put a paper clip into that outlet I would know that there is power in the outlet experientially! That leads me to say that I'm not doing this just to better understand the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, I want to feel that power!

Multitasking?

We live in a day when people want to make the most out their time. The result is what has been dubbed "multitasking." Now, I have read my share of books on time management and I own more than one "productivity tool" which is intended to help me multitask, but I have to ask, is all of this good? Really, I have come to wonder if some folks over commit to secondary things just so they will have an excuse about not doing the primary things.

I am sure that someone reading the previous paragraph would be thinking, "well, the real issue is priority." I would agree, but there is something even more important which we need to remember. There is value, from time to time, to doing nothing. Truth is, by doing "nothing" you are doing "something," but I mean the kind of nothing that can't be checked off a "To Do" list. The thing that most often escapes me is that elusive thing called serious thought. Just rolling something over in your mind and mentally looking at all the aspects of something. If you fail to do this, you may end up making major decisions in too hasty a manner. Who wants that? Believe me, I have done enough of that for a lifetime and I always see the value a little more thought would have brought to the process.

Another aspect of this is captured by the phrase, "a jack of all trades, but a master of none." It takes time to master things. If that area becomes primary in your life, it may mean the neglect of some secondary items, but then that is why they are called secondary.

So, if after reading this post you think not just in terms of the "To Do" list but also of the priority of those things I will have accomplished part of what I set out to do. If you move on to spend some time in the mastery of the primary, even if it means the neglect of the secondary, I will have hit the bulls eye.