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As For Me & My House | Week 6
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About 25 years ago, I came perilously close to burnout. It wasn't from doing bad things—it was from doing too many good things. I was raising a family, leading with an organization, my first book had come out, and I was speaking in many places. I was simply throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck.
I found myself constantly irritated, unable to sleep well, overwhelmed. A dear friend I hadn't seen in years stopped me at an event and said something that changed my life: "Crawford, there comes a time in your life where you have to stop doing the things that you can do and do the things that you should do."
That statement hit me hard. I realized that the stuff destroying me wasn't the categorically opposite of good—it wasn't the D-minus, C-minus, or F stuff. The stuff that will destroy your life is the B-minus and C-plus stuff—the fairly good stuff. The question became: What were we born to do?
After that conversation, some friends held me accountable, and I went on a sabbatical. God showed me something crucial: there are only three things in my life that nobody else can do for me.
Every single other thing I do, somebody else can and will do when I die. Before the dirt is hard on my coffin, they'll be passing out a position focus sheet to replace me. We pursue fool's gold and look back over our lives asking, "How much of this stuff did God really have His hand on?"
I stopped using the word "balance" about 20-25 years ago. Saying you're living a "balanced life" assumes the targets are always stationary. Life isn't like that.
The more accurate and healthy description is that we're always pressing into dynamic tensions. Your marriage isn't the same as it was five years ago. Your children's needs change constantly. Issues on your job change. You change. What we must embrace is communication, adjustment, and movement toward where things are at this present moment.
There are seasons when you're free to travel more because of work, but then issues in your family need attention. There are times you can volunteer more at church. The question isn't whether this is "balanced"—the question is: How do we steward our lives? How do we leverage and maximize our moment in history?
God has given us the gift of time to demonstrate and declare through our lives what's most important. Time is just a resource—like money. Money is neutral (the love of money is wrong, but money itself is neutral). The purpose of both time and money is to leverage them to maximize what's most important in your life.
The Apostle Paul captures this perfectly in Ephesians 5:15-16:
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of your time.
The Greek word for "walk" is peripateo—a colloquialism Paul uses to summarize how you live the daily course of your life. Reject passivity. Pay attention to how you're living. Make the best use of your time.
Moses wrote Psalm 90, and throughout it, he drives home the brevity of life. For those of us who are high-control people, this is hard to accept because it's the realization that we control nothing. We are one text message away from crisis. We're one doctor's visit away from catastrophe. We control nothing. At any given moment, God can say, "Give me back my breath."
Moses says in verse 10:
The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble, and they are soon gone and we fly away.
If you're past 70, that's bonus coverage, brother. You're living in overtime. When you die and your friends die, maybe a generation and a half will remember you existed. We're not nearly as invincible as we think.
Based on this reality, Moses—like Paul—says this should drive urgency. Life is but a brief moment in history lodged between two vast eternities. Every day of our life we must ask: What am I doing with my moment? I don't have this moment again. You don't have it again. What are you doing with this fleeting little moment lodged between two vast eternities?
Moses forces his readers to make three critical decisions—not profound, but compellingly clear.
Verse 12:
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
"Number our days" doesn't mean sitting down and counting seconds. It means consider that in this life we have a limited amount of time. Why? So that as you look in the rearview mirror of your life, you see the legacy of wisdom, not stupidity and foolishness.
Wisdom is the practical, transferable application of knowledge. You can Google knowledge, but you can't Google wisdom. You can get content, but wisdom requires skillfulness—the skillful, appropriate application of knowledge to all the issues in your life. That comes by experience.
Experience isn't always the best teacher, but it's the only school a fool will attend. Stop running into the same wall five times, expecting it to move. Number your days—don't keep making these jacked-up decisions.
There are critical implications here:
First: You cannot manage time. Stop telling people to "manage time"—that's a stupid thing. You can't manage time. The clock is ruthless; you won't stop it. The calendar is ruthless; you won't stop it. The best thing you can do is manage yourself in light of the time you have. Self-management is what matters.
I wish I had known 50 years ago that discipline is a pathway to freedom. It sounds crazy, but if you want to experience freedom, you have to embrace discipline. Undisciplined lives lead to frustration and constant pursuit of fulfillment.
Second: Everything about us is affected by the choices and decisions we make. This sounds cold-blooded, but listen: we are what we decide to be. When you're born, you look like your parents. When you die, you look like your decisions. Even if people have abused you and done horrible things—that's not justified, but the truth is, you still control your responses and reactions. You still control that.
Somebody here needs to hear this: Quit procrastinating your joy and happiness until your circumstances change. Weep. Cry. Get help. Get counseling. Get perspective. But at the end of the day, life is lived in the verb position. What are you deciding?
Third: Identify core values and priority relationships, which will establish how you use and direct your time. We say, "I don't have enough time." That's not true. We have enough time. The question is: What is the level of your intentionality about your life?
What do you value? What will you die for? What will you live for? What gives weight to you? What makes you pound the table and weep? Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:10 that God has prepared good works for us to walk in. Are you just rolling through life as a crapshoot? Or are you spending time alone with the Lord, asking Him: "God, what was I born for? What signature have you written over my soul that I need to steward until I walk into Your presence?"
You can't neglect core relationships. Everybody will jump into the same train car with you and your family, but after a while, that train is going to leave. What's the condition of those relationships? You spend so much time trying to impress people and climb a ladder, and the folks don't even care that much about you.
You just heard urgency, and now contentment? Listen to what Moses says in verse 14:
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
The source of joy and rejoicing and gladness isn't the circumstances of our lives—it's our relationship with God. Moses uses the Hebrew word for God's proactive demeanor toward us—unconditional love and kindness that takes your breath away.
The core of how you should live, work, and greet all the stuff in life should be centered on your contentment in an ever-present God who cares about you and loves you. You don't have to live life frenetically. You don't have to live as if the circumstances and stuff around you control your demeanor, your ups and downs.
Joy in the Bible is a choice and decision lodged in the consistency and never-changing nature of God. Joy in the Bible is something that cannot be affected, contaminated, or moved by the incredible, unpredictable stuff that happens in this life.
We often misquote Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." People throw this verse around as if it means you can do whatever you want. But in context, Paul is talking about contentment. He says: "I've been abased and I've abounded. I've had abundance and lack. But you know what? My demeanor isn't determined by my circumstances—it's determined by the One inside me."
We quote the verse as if we can do whatever we want, but drop it in the proper context: Paul is talking about contentment. The verse means Christ gives me the ability to face the incredible, unpredictable nature of life.
Stop looking to life for fulfillment and joy. Christians bring a sense of fulfillment and joy to life. Our relationship with a sovereign God brings stability to everything around us. He is our satisfaction.
This is why believers can walk through situations without losing their minds—they're looking to the Lord. We live under His lordship. Contentment is a matter of submission. If we're not willing to submit to the lordship of Christ, we're always going to be bifurcated and conflicted—always.
When Moses prays, "Satisfy us in the morning with Your loving kindness," he's saying: Before my feet touch the floor, meet me with Your steadfast love.
We're rounding third and coming home. The third decision is: live strategically.
Listen to verses 16-17:
Let Your work be shown to Your servants and Your glorious power to the children and their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us.
Moses doesn't use the word "eternity" or "eternal perspective," but that's what he's talking about. He's saying: Although you live a brief life, establish the work of your hands. Think beyond yourself.
Nobody is stopping the calendar, and nobody is stopping the clock. You don't know when it's all going to be over, so you need to get your backside in gear. You need to live wisely—stop making silly, jacked-up decisions. You need to live contentedly—your life is the expression of God's goodness. And thirdly, you need to live strategically.
Moses articulates this in verses 16 and 17:
Let Your work be shown to Your servants and Your glorious power to the children and their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us.
Although Moses doesn't use the word "eternity" or "eternal perspective," that's exactly what he's talking about. He's saying two things: First, if you want to leave footprints in the sands of time, you definitely have to wear work boots. We were born to matter, but the statement we make is not about us—it's a statement about Him.
We are pilgrims and strangers rushing through this land. There's a nomadic characteristic to Christianity and the people of God. We're marching through this place. The reason God doesn't take us to Heaven the moment we give our hearts to Jesus is rooted in the theology of the people of God: we represent an incarnational presence during our moment in history.
Your life and my life is a demonstration of the plan and purposes of God during the time that we are here. A watching world needs to see lives that are motivated by the principles of another world. That's the only lasting statement we make.
One of the sad things is that chances are our grandchildren will be the last generation to remember our voices. What are you passing on to the next generation? What is there about your life and my life that's enduring?
Don't misunderstand—we should enjoy life. We should take our grandkids to Disney World and on cruises and do all the wonderful things. But two or three generations down the road, they won't remember Mickey. They won't remember the lido deck. How are you ordering your life strategically to make the Eternal the centerpiece of your life?
Let me tell you a quick story. My great-grandfather's name was Peter Loritts. Peter was a slave. My great-grandfather Peter became very old when he passed away, and although he couldn't read or write, he loved the Word of God. He used to make his children and grandchildren read him favorite passages of Scripture over and over and over again. The old boy had memorized some of it. He loved Jesus, and his commitment to Christ forged generations in our family.
My grandfather Milton had fourteen children—seven boys and seven girls. Fast forward to today: the Old Homestead is in Conover, North Carolina, and there's a cemetery across the street behind a little church called Thomas Chapel. About a third to half of the people buried there are related to me.
A couple of years ago, my oldest son Brian and I were speaking at the Cove in Asheville, North Carolina. I said to Brian, "You want to go down to Conover?" He said yes. We hopped in the car and found our way to Thomas Chapel cemetery. As I walked through and began telling Brian who these people were—my grandparents Milton and Anna, their brothers and sisters—I was ambushed by emotion. I began to weep.
It dawned on me: "Brian, son, nobody knows who these people are. I don't even think they ever in their lifetime went beyond Charlotte, North Carolina. But these people love God, son. These folks paid your tuition because they lived for what matters most." The folks who read your books, who listen to you, who follow you, son—it ain't about you. It's not about me. They lived for what mattered most.
So what Moses is saying is this: Make sure that during your moment in history, you're benchmarking the next generation with what matters most. The core of that is knowing Christ as your Savior and Lord, turning your life over to Him—the Author of Life.
If you have yet to trust Him as your Savior, don't waste your life. You don't control the clock or the calendar. The day you hear His voice, don't harden your heart. Respond to Him. You were born for a relationship with Him. All you have to do is say: "Lord Jesus, thank You for dying on the cross for my sin. I turn from my sin and I trust You as my Savior and Lord." He will come into your heart and life.
Father, thank You for Yourself. Thank You, God, for the kindness of the people here and those who are watching. Lord Jesus, I pray that You'll help us to embrace the gift of Life. May we live wisely. May we live contentedly. And by all means, may we live strategically. Thank You for Your love and Your patience, and thank You for what You'll do. In Jesus' name, amen.
