Wisdom in a hammock

During the days here, when we aren’t working hard in the fields or in whichever manual labour task we have, we do get some time to chill out. Our days typically look like breakfast at 8, work all morning, lunch and rest break 12-2, work all afternoon, finish between 5 & 6, dinner, and then a team meeting at some point during the rest of the evening. 

My favoured activity after lunch in the last 11 days has been to head outside to the trees near the house where several squad mates have set up their hammocks, and chill in one of those hammocks (we’re happy to share everything with each other on the race so this is all good). I’ve tended to take a book out with me, read it for 45 minutes-ish, and then nap until the afternoon work begins. In our first week here I managed, during that time and using some of my time in evenings, to get through four of the books on Angie’s (our host) book shelf. I’m currently reading a fifth, with others I may or may not get to afterwards.

So let me share a bit about what I have read:

‘Wealth, Riches and Money’ has helped me consider how I view the money in my possession and how I will use what money I have made available to me in the future. One of the biggest things has been in re-realising that no money is mine, but it is all God’s and that it is through His grace that I have anything. There is never a question of “what shall I do with my money” but always “what am I doing with the money He has entrusted to me?” (tithing really changes from being a question of “how much of my money do I give to God?” to “how much of God’s money am I going to keep to myself?”). It has been helpful (even if I haven’t agreed with all of the theology behind some of it) for developing principles that will guide my use of finances in my life, including savings, investments, spending, giving, tithing, sowing and reaping and more.

‘Boy meets Girl’ is all about courtship – exchanging the idea of casual dating for actually seeking out the person God has for you and becoming the person God has for someone else. This isn’t something that I can focus on exactly at the moment, but I’m reminded how the way I develop my relationships with people in general now will have an impact on how this will play out later – becoming the kind of person now that will be a faithful, pure, strong man of God in a relationship.

’90 Minutes in Heaven’ was an interesting read about a pastor who was in a huge car wreck, pronounced dead and then 90 minutes later was miraculously revived by the prayers of another pastor who had stopped and felt God prompting him to do so. It is the man’s account of being in heaven for the time he was dead and the ordeal of his recovery. A compelling and inspiring story (not the first I’ve heard of an experience of heaven) that encourages me in my faith, in what God has for us and in how He uses us even in the worst of situations.