Jonah, Love Actually, and Me

Twenty-eight minutes. No good.

Saturday night before I delivered the Sunday morning sermon at our church last week I was in my office giving it a final run through or two. The assignment was 25 minutes. A week ago it had been around 22. A few edits later, followed by flu days with no work, and there I was, polishing. And over time. Hoping I had just been slow, I went through again. I looked at the clock. Twenty-eight minutes. Time to cut.

I searched the sermon for what could go, what I could safely cut loose and not feel like had cost much to my message. There wasn't anything. I was emotionally tied to every piece in every section, and I felt the impact of losing every sentence whose worth I weighed.

But 28 isn't 25. Three minutes had to go. There just wasn't room for everything I wanted, and I could just imagine the yawns and clock-watching from a perturbed audience unhappy with the new guy's windy ways. So I cut. I didn't shave around the edges; I took out a knife and sliced a couple of whole pieces, pieces that I felt academically married to, some sentences and paragraphs that were there in my head and on the page long before there was any semblance of a sermon.

I liked the pieces. I liked them a lot. But I didn't need them. In the way of what mattered most, they had to go.

My wife and I watched the film Love Actually the other night. We've seen it many times before, but we never viewed the deleted scenes until that night. The director spoke in advance of the scenes, and he indicated that when they finished the movie, they realized that it was 3 1/2 hours long. They knew they had to cut to make it marketable. The final run time of the film is just over two hours, so it's clear they also cut deep. The director paraded out scene after scene, talking about how they initially absolutely loved it and couldn't imagine the film without it, but ultimately it had to go.

After watching several of the scenes, my wife and I expressed mutual feelings: we were thankful for the cuts. Frankly, we saw no loss at all. Knowing how much we enjoy the final product, we saw the value in seeing it pruned into only what was necessary and fruitful.

The cuts were hard for the director, just as they were hard for me with the sermon, just as they are hard for any writer in the revision process who must let go of prose that are perfect, just not for this occasion. You've got to cut to get to the essence of what really matters.

I see that reality in every season of my life. As hard as I want to try, I can't fit 28 minutes into 25. If I do, what I have is worse at each of the 28 minutes than if I just got rid of something. The something is usually good. I don't think cutting the garbage out of our lives is the hard part, Most people, when faced with the knowledge that something they are doing is a significant time-sucker with no real payoff are quick and even joyful to drop it. No, what's hard is when everything you have is good, or seems good. But you know it's not essential.

Everything you choose to do is a trade. You are trading that time and that activity for doing something else. Too often, it is choosing not to do better what's essential and fulfilling.

Let me encourage you to cut. It probably won't feel good, because there's not a lot in your day-to-day schedule, or in your holiday plans, or in your work day, or in your time with your family, that you don't think is helpful. But it's likely you're trading good for what's best.

Name what's best. Name what's essential. Then get out the knife.


***My writing has been primarily absent over the past month or so as I've spent much of my energies preparing for my Sunday morning sermon debut, a message on Jonah 3. My next several posts, therefore, will be either commentary about the experience, key passages from the message, or pieces I couldn't fit in but enjoyed writing anyway.