- Better Christian
- Posts
- The devil no longer has to tempt us with bad things.
The devil no longer has to tempt us with bad things.
Strike a balance between two core activities: prayer and work. These activities represent the fundamental purposes for which humans were created. God calls us to seek His face in prayer and to do His work in the world.
Payton Minzenmayer
August 08, 2024
In partnership with
30-Second Version For Busy People
I'll likely never live in a monastery. I get jittery when I sit still for too long, and my chanting is subpar. While my monastic fantasies might never be fulfilled, I can still build healthier rhythms between prayer and work.
These activities represent the fundamental purposes for which humans were created. God calls us to seek His face in prayer and to do His work in the world.
New Thought: God uses my work. God uses my rest (prayer).
New Action: Practice the ABCs of Prayer (Say “A new day” prayer, Break up your day with prayer, Connect with others through prayer).
Remember, better thoughts lead to better actions, and better actions lead to better Christians.
Full Version
I am fascinated with monasteries, largely because their intentionally monotonous pacing of routine and discipline contrasts sharply with my daily life. Monasteries sanctify time; they focus on task over time.
They are fully devoted to the idea that time belongs to God and that our use of time only finds meaning when we honor and serve God in religious and secular tasks.
They strike a balance between two core activities: prayer and work. These activities represent the fundamental purposes for which humans were created. God calls us to seek His face in prayer and to do His work in the world.
Prayer draws us to God; work sends us into the world.
Prayer centers and quiets us; work energizes us.
Prayer restores us to God; work allows us to participate in God's restoration of the world.
It's the balance of the monastery, the balance of the early church, and the balance we can also find in our daily lives.
"They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
BETTER THOUGHT
Photo by Adrian Swancar / Unsplash
Today's better thought: God uses my work. God uses my rest (prayer).
One of the devil's greatest tools in the modern world is busyness.
In his book Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer connects busyness with sin: "Both sin and busyness have the same effect: they cut off your connection to God, to other people, and even to your own soul."
The devil no longer has to tempt us with bad things; he simply entices us with other things to keep us from doing good.
We work to make money, gain power and prestige, and advance in our careers. We become presumptuous, thinking that work can accomplish good things without relying on God. Or, as former President Donald Trump said in a recent interview, “If I'm good, I'm going to heaven."
Isn't that the leading line of thinking for Christians? What must I do to enter the Kingdom of God? We forget that only God can accomplish what has transcendent value and eternal significance.
For balance between prayer and work, I look back to the monasteries.
Establishing a rhythm of prayer and work will enable me to relish the present moment as a gift from God, give myself complete attention to the task at hand, and surrender my work to God through prayer.
"When we see a man who is pure and humble, that is a vision great enough. For what is greater than such a vision, to see the invisible God in a visible man, his temple?"
BETTER ACTION
Photo by Ricardo Arce / Unsplash
Today's better action: Practice the ABCs of Prayer.
While very few will ever live in a monastery and perhaps may never even visit one, there are ways to develop a monastic rhythm in our daily lives.
In the West, we often view time as a commodity to be consumed or wasted. We keep schedules and to-do lists to optimize our usage of time. I know someone who has their weekly calendar planned down to the minute.
The truth many of us hate to face is that we only have this present moment. Tomorrow doesn't even know you exist and cares little about what you care about and how it should be. In an instant, your tomorrow could change.
When prayer and work find a healthy rhythm in my life, I begin to relish the present moment as a gift from God rather than a means to something different tomorrow.
Something that has helped me recently is what I call the ABCs of Prayer: “A new day” prayer, Break up your day with prayer, Connect with others through prayer
A New Day: I start my day with a simple prayer, "Thank you for a new day. It is a day full of opportunities. Help me to live in your presence and carry out my tasks. Amen.”
Break with prayer: I have scheduled short, intentional breaks throughout the day to pause, breathe, relax my muscles, and ignore time. Start with 3x a day.
Connect with prayer: I aim to pray with more people throughout the day. It takes more courage than I'd like to admit to ask someone, "Can I pray with you about that right now?”
I'm not a monk. I likely never will be (I've never been good at sitting still for long periods of time). But I can build healthier rhythms between my prayer and work.
Both are to God's glory.
BECOMING A BETTER CHRISTIAN
When Christians get better, everyone gets better. Here are a few ways I am getting better this week.
Cormac McCarthy wrote the best parenting book of all time, The Road. For those unfamiliar, The Road is the story of an unnamed man and his unnamed son, who are walking through an ashen, ruined landscape in the wake of an unnamed catastrophe that happened years prior, when the boy was quite young. I tore through the book in two days and believe it will outlast every other parenting book in terms of relevance.
A ZOA a day keeps my sleepiness at bay. I don't know where you stand with energy drinks (I've never been a fan of many), but ZOA is good. It is the cleanest energy drink I've found, which is why I choose it. My favorite flavor currently is Pineapple Coconut.
One of the ways I pause from fast-paced living is through board games. A good board game forces me to slow down, think methodically, and focus. I found a delightful little game that checks all these boxes last week. Forage is the third and final installment of Mark Tuck’s 9-card solitaire game series. Check it out for a quick-paced, airplane-ride-size, single-player game.
Hit "reply" and let me know what you're doing!
We scour 100+ sources daily
Read by CEOs, scientists, business owners and more
3.5 million subscribers
Reply