Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Habits of a Steward
Commentary
for the March 24, 2018 Sabbath School Lesson
“Therefore
rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the
sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he
knows that his time is short.” Revelation 12:12, NIV
Much of our quarter has been directly or indirectly
focused on the material resources God has blessed us with and our responsibility
to use those resources in accordance with God’s will to bless and save. That
desire arises out of God’s loving and compassionate character. As we grow to
understand that character more and more as we draw closer and closer to Christ,
we are naturally drawn to emulate that love, not only returning love to God,
but also becoming vessels of that love to others. This may seem hard,
especially in evil times or when others are less than loving to us. It may even
seem impossible to us. The pain of past wounds may be too great to ignore, but
what may seem impossible can become reality. What we have neither the strength nor
desire to provide can nonetheless show forth, not as our character, but as God’s
if we will step aside and instead of blocking the light, allowing it to flow
through us. When that light shines through, it not only brings God’s love to
others. It also brings healing for our own pain. So much opportunity for healing
is lost when we choose to make life about our pain rather than about the One
who loves us more than life itself. He died upon a rough, wooden cross to make
that point. He is intimately acquainted with our pain and the betrayal we have
felt because of His own experience with the heartbreak of betrayal and His
anguished death on that cross.
But the story did not end there. His death was followed by a glorious
resurrection and ascension to heaven, and even more exciting, He is coming back
for us. The only thing standing between us and that wonderful day is time. Time
is a blessed gift, an opportunity given to us in the interim. But it is a gift
that passes quickly as even the Devil understands, per our verse from Revelation
above. Therefore how much more should those of us who are awaiting that day eagerly
understand the importance of time? Time is irreplaceable. If we lose any
material possession, there is always the possibility to obtain more, but time,
once it is gone, cannot be recalled, replaced, or increased. Sadly, in spite of
that, we spend much of our lives wishing it away. When we are children we wish
we were adults to enjoy the freedoms of adulthood. Teenagers wish they were old
enough to be licensed to enjoy the freedom of driving a car. Students wish they
were already graduated so they could begin their careers. Those working in
those careers, every Monday may be wishing it was Friday already and the tedium
of the work week was past. Those same workers may also wish the years would
pass so that they could enjoy the steady income and travel opportunities or
ability to pursue loved hobbies provided by retirement. In the end, we may end
up with limited resources, limited mobility, and poor health, looking back at
how much life we had wished away and wishing instead that it had not gone so
quickly. We also may wish something else.
In doing pastoral visitation to those who are near
end-of-life or are in hospice situations, I have over and over experienced the
regret that many feel that they did not do more for the Lord, more to reach
others with the good news of the grace that God offers each of us. Some even
feel that if someone is eternally lost, it is their fault that they were not
saved. I point out to them that God is love, and He makes sure that every
person has a fair opportunity to be saved. He will not abandon someone simply
because we may have neglected opportunities to reach out to them. While God
gives us the wonderful privilege to participate in the plan of salvation, He
will not unfairly reject someone because of our failure. More to the point may
be whether or not we can trust in God’s compassion and grace when faced with
our own perception of our failings. Are we willing to bring that to the foot of
the cross that we might leave it there in order to lighten our guilt infused
burden, replacing it with the joy of forgiveness?
Of course, this does not mean that one should squander
the opportunities to be a source of love and compassion to others. When we
consider that not only is time an irreplaceable treasure, but that we also have
no idea how much of that horde we have left, whether a lot or only a small
amount, it causes us to pause and reflect on what we might be losing as it
passes. Have we spent thousands of hours doing little more than entertaining
ourselves, disengaged from the world around us? Have we lost opportunities that
might have brought new experiences into our lives? I once knew of a celebrity
pianist who was often told by people after his concerts, “I wish I could play
the piano well like you can!” His somewhat curt reply was usually “No you don’t,
or you would.” His point was well made though. For each of our lives is made up
of the choices we make as to what we do with the seconds, minutes, hours, and
days given to us. How we use our time says what is important to us more loudly
than any speech we could give. We may not even fully realize our priorities. An
interesting exercise might be to make a journal of how each day is spent, hour
by hour, for a week. At the end of the week, we may be surprised to discover
what we have considered most important based on how much time we devoted to it.
Some have been astonished at how much time was devoted to inanimate objects
that could care less about our attention as opposed to time spent with people
who are capable of responding to us.
This perhaps brings us to the main focus of this week’s
lesson, that because of the shortness of time, both relative to our perception
and maybe actual since we do not know when we will run out of remaining seconds
to tick away from our lives, we may be well-advised to examine our use of what few
we have left. In a sense, we might consider the way we spend our treasure of
time an opportunity for investment. If we spend the time caring for others, we
are told in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats that we will receive eternal
life.[i] In other words, the proper
investment of the limited amount of time we have been given can result in more
time than we can even conceive of. In eternity, the passage of time may seem of
little relevance. How is that possible? If we consider the temporal foreshortening
that takes place even in our limited lives now, we can understand it. When we
are four-years-old, a year is ¼ of our entire lives. However when we are
eighty-years-old, it is only 1/80. This is why the years seem to fly by faster
and faster as we age. We can perhaps see then how from the perspective of
eternity, a century, or even a millennium, can shrink into relative nothingness.
How comparatively small then is the investment of our time on behalf of others
in this life. Though we may spend decades in works of compassion on behalf of
others, the time, which may seem a burden at the moment, is little enough to
spend in the overall balance of value.
Of course, we might also consider that we hold all we
possess, including our time, in trust for One who will eventually return. If we
understand God to be compassionate, loving and full of grace toward His
creation, we will be excited to share with Him the efforts we have made to
represent those attributes on His behalf. In as much as we have done so, He
will be filled with joy. He will happily add to what we have done both in terms
of opportunities and responsibilities for we will have shown ourselves trustworthy
through how we have used the blessings we had already received. However, if we
instead see Him as harsh, judgmental, and oppressive toward others, we will
reflect that belief in our actions toward others and create for ourselves a God
who will visit us as we have visited others, and since we have proven ourselves
untrustworthy as to how we represent Him, we will lose what little we had. It
will then be turned over to those who more faithfully represent His loving,
compassionate character.[ii] Better then that we prove
ourselves faithful in such representations like good stewards who faithfully
discharge their duties while not forgetting the grace and compassion of the One
who has given them their charge.
