25 Oct 2010
Whole life
The little things
I am continuing my dialogue with Paul’s challenge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12.
One of the things I notice about Paul’s list is that none of the things he mentions are issues which you could ever get to a point where you don’t need to work on them.
The second thing he counsels Timothy is to set an example with his life.
Interesting that this comes second in a list of five things. In some ways he could have just said “set and example with your life” and left it there. Why didn’t he?
I think it was because he had something specific in mind.
I wonder whether what Paul meant when he said “life” was actually the way Timothy lives the ordinary details of the day-to-day grind.
It can be so tempting to think that “work” or “ministry” are the important things, and the details like how we relate to the shop assistant we purchased our groceries from, or what time we got out of bed are ‘incidental’ to the real business of life.
The more I study the bible, and the more I live, I discover that God cares about the detail and the incidental.
He cares about how I spoke to my daughter today.
He cares that I am 20 k.g. overweight
He cares that I am not getting enough sleep.
He cares that there are weeds in my garden.
For Him there is not a scale of big things and little things, there is life.
God calls me to a whole life, every bit of it, and when I get it out of balance he seems to call me back from my grand plans to be ‘here’ and ‘now’.
I love that Paul exhorts Timothy to set an example through his life.
I imagine Timothy did the washing up just as much he did the preaching and teaching.
i never thought about paul or even Jesus doing the washing up or putting out the garbige but they must had yes its the little things that mattersmore than the big things what a lesson to learn
mary hooker
October 25th, 2010 at 8:58 pmpermalink