What Really Matters

Psalm 24, Psalm 8, Proverbs 19:17

What really matters? What is the most important piece to keep in mind as we enter faith praxis?

Let scripture guide as we discover those answers.

The first thing that really matters is perspective—keeping proper focus on how things work, how things are ordered, and how we enter that order. Psalm 24 states it clearly and succinctly—

The earth is the Lord’s and all who dwell within it…

That means that everything we see around us all the time flows directly from the being and presence of God. Everything. The implications of that are astounding. Primarily, as we listen to the psalm, it implies something about ownership. We will fool ourselves into thinking that what we have, including our own lives, are ours, but the psalm directly counters such an assumption—no, all that we have, including our lives, belongs to God. The world and all its blessings are a gift. Life itself is a gift. That immediately calls for an examination of what we are doing with these gifts—

how are we treating the earth?

how are we practicing stewardship with the blessings therein?

how are we treating the other people around us, both intimate and stranger alike?

how are we treating ourselves? our bodies? our minds? our spirits?

The psalm calls for us to keep God ever before us. We really should not leave the house without first invoking the name of God as we go, simply as a reminder about whose domain we are entering. We probably should not end the day without regard for God, either. God was with us each step taken; God was with us in each conversation; God was with us in each choice and decision—God was with us everywhere, all the time. In Judaism, there is the practice of the shema—reciting Deuteronomy 6:4-5 upon rising and going to bed each day, framing the day with a celebration of the Lord, with the hope that all that was said done glorified the Lord and served God well.

Now, having worked to keep proper perspective, another psalm comes into play, guiding us into the second thing that really matters—grace. Psalm 8 is a fascinating prayer—it is at once a prayer of praise, but simultaneously a prayer of self-abnegation, coupled with an affirmation of our basic worth—a development of thought that only works if we see it as a work of God’s grace. Again, the starting point is to see the mighty power of God. Just look at the created order. You do not even have to leave your yard to see the wondrous power of God—it is there in the birds, flying, singing, and decorating the shrubbery; it is there in the shrubbery itself—remarkable living things that get their sustenance from the wind and the rain; it is there in the sweep of stars above us—it is everywhere we look. But, we have heard the voice of this God beyond all imagination and reason calling us. An old gospel hymn gets it exactly right—

Jesus is calling today

tenderly calling today

Come home, come home…

God descends to us, and in that descent, God lifts us. God raises as God’s instruments and implements, giving us dominion—a word whose meaning we need to to fully reconsider. We equate dominion with power, and often, we take it as abject power—the freedom to do whatever we want with no thought of anyone or anything else. But the psalm has something else in mind, something wholly other from any self-serving, self-centered definition—dominion for the psalmist is stewardship—preserving the earth and all that is in it so that not only can we enjoy all of its benefits, but every generation after us will also enjoy every benefit we enjoy.

We brings us to a third most important thing that matters—kindness. Like dominion, kindness needs some further explanation to see how God means it. The proverb captures it fairly directly—kindness is compassion; kindness is having an eye and ear attuned to the presence of the neediest of all; and kindness is actively engaging to alleviate suffering. As followers of Jesus, kindness is a foundation stone of our faith experience, for Jesus is really no more and no less than the kindness of God personified: 

this is how much God loves us; God becomes one of us…

God becomes one of us to get us through the morass and mess that life often becomes. God becomes one of us to reveal fully and completely that God has never moved away from us. God’s claim upon us as God’s children by grace is still in effect, and, in fact, there will never be anything to alter that status, no matter how far afield we stray, no matter how evil the world becomes, no matter what! In short order, what God wants removed from human experience is despair. Despair is hopelessness on steroids. It robs life of meaning, direction, purpose, and joy. God cannot tolerate it and will not accept it, so God meets us in Jesus. Listen that hymn again—God wants us home—which nowhere else than in God’s tender embrace. And the means by which to enter that embrace is to model our life on God’s presence; i.e., live by and in kindness. A wondrous dynamic in faith praxis comes fully alive—to know kindness, be kind.

So there it is—what really matters.

The task before us is to make it so. Begin simply—acknowledge God; then hear his voice full of invitation; then serve in love.