Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines

by David Mathis

John Piper wisely observes, “The impossibility of drawing a line between night and day doesn’t mean you can’t know it’s midnight.”2

In the end, as cheerfully as we may give, we cannot out-give the truly cheerful Giver. Willingly, he gave his own Son (John 3:16; Rom. 8:32), as he had decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, but with joy.

God loves a cheerful giver because he is one, the consummate one. And every gift we give in Christ is simply an echo of what we have already received, and the immeasurable riches to come (Eph. 2:7).

As Donald S. Whitney reasons, “If people threw away their money as thoughtlessly as they throw away their time, we would think them insane. Yet time is infinitely more precious than money because money can’t buy time.”

The hands of the clock are ever in the hands of God.

As Martin Luther so memorably said, it is not God who needs your good works, but your neighbor.

In terms of our professional “calling,” often we find it easier to identify what it is God might be moving us toward in the future, rather than what he has presently called us to today.

Study after study confirms the importance of the first hours of the day for fulfilling the most important (and often most intensive) aspects of our calling. In the morning, we’re typically our sharpest and have the largest store of energy to work creatively and proactively. Also, in the morning we’re less likely to be sidelined by interruptions and the urgencies that arise as the day wears on.

Sometimes, the most loving thing we can do is get away from people for a few minutes, feed our souls on God and his goodness, and come back to our families and communities reenergized for anticipating and meeting others’ needs. But at other times, the path of love is dying to our desires for personal time alone—even in such good things as Bible meditation and prayer—to give attention to the toddler who is sick or woke up early, or to prepare and serve breakfast to family from out of town, or to assist a spouse or friend who is having his own crazy morning.