United Methodist Church Westlake Village

Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing: Lessons from a Life in Service

• United Methodist Church Westlake Village

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How do we recognize God's presence in our daily lives? Where do we turn when the divine feels distant? What actions can bring us closer to our spiritual purpose?

Tim Bonds, a longtime church member and RAND Corporation senior fellow, opens his heart in this intimate conversation about faith, purpose, and presence. With remarkable vulnerability, Tim shares how his professional work supporting military families and personal experiences with family challenges have shaped his understanding of God's presence in both joyful and difficult seasons.

At the core of Tim's testimony lies a profound insight: God is visible through the "angels" who extend kindness without expectation of return. From the child who welcomed his daughter after a difficult move to colleagues who offered support during professional challenges, these encounters reveal divine love in action. Yet Tim doesn't shy away from discussing seasons when God felt distant—during his father's terminal illness and while navigating his youngest child's lifelong struggles.

Drawing wisdom from the parable of the Good Samaritan, Tim reflects on how easily we can become like the priest or Levite who "lost the plot" of what truly matters. Even good people with good intentions can miss opportunities to embody God's love when distracted by lesser concerns. The challenge, Tim suggests, is to consistently "keep the main thing the main thing"—to recognize what truly matters amid life's countless demands and distractions.

This conversation offers a spiritual practice worth adopting: regularly asking ourselves where we see God, where God feels distant, and what we can do to make divine presence more tangible. Tim's honest reflections remind us that faith isn't about having all the answers but about continuing to seek, serve, and remain present—especially when we cannot change difficult circumstances.

Join us for this heartfelt exploration of faith in action and discover how seemingly small acts of kindness can become powerful expressions of God's unwavering love in a sometimes broken world.

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Pastor Darren:

Well, a couple of months ago, when I was piecing together, we had annual conference coming, that United Methodist Conference once a year. I thought that is a rough week to put a sermon together with time and everything. So a couple of times what I've done is let people get to know somebody who's walked in their midst in a deeper way. Oftentimes it'll be somebody they've known for years and years, maybe even decades, and so I'm going to invite Tim Bonds to come forward. There. He is hiding in the corner over here and I know Tim has had an interesting faith journey and not only that, an interesting guy as well. Those of you who've been in Bible study and other places with him know that. So here we'll sit down so we don't look all tense. I'm a little nervous, yeah, why are they so tense? So before we start, tim knows there's three questions I'm asking. Right, I'm going to add a fourth.

Tim Bonds:

Do I get a lifeline?

Pastor Darren:

I knew enough to know. Engineer, right, engineer, you add something to the plan for an engineer. There's usually a cost and schedule impact. So I'm going to invite you to take one minute and just give the quick overview of your life. You know, born here, you met your lovely wife Nancy, the kind of things you've done for a living, your kids and maybe what lands you here.

Tim Bonds:

So very quickly, in less than a minute. Born and raised in Michigan, met my wife at the University of Michigan. We have some fellow alumni here in the room today. We moved here. We lived in St Louis for a number of years, then we moved here in 1993 and started with this church right away. So it's been 32 years. Our three daughters grew up in this church. One of them is volunteering right now in Sunday school there you go. Started work here at the Rand right now in Sunday school, there you go, and started work here at the Rand Corporation down in Santa Monica. And that, in less than a minute, is about it, yeah.

Pastor Darren:

So I'm going to push just a touch. What have you done with the Rand Corporation? Because I know it's provocative stuff you do.

Tim Bonds:

So many things Now, part of the reason why I'm nervous today. Pastor Darren, in your message you said that I'd had a provocative life and I remember one time in my past when I was provocative, I think the principal called me down to the office. So we were wondering exactly what would be in the interview. Today, larry, when we were kicking around the choir loft before this service said that well, maybe it's an exit interview. So, without quite knowing what to expect At the Rand Corporation, most of my work there has been trying to help the Department of Defense make better decisions, and that could be about personnel policy, that could be in acquisition of new technologies, that could be in some of their strategies and some of their other policies.

Tim Bonds:

Worked a long time 10 years with the Air Force and then another 10 years with the Army. I was a program director and ran Project Air Force, working with one of my colleagues in church here today, and then I was a vice president of the Army Research Division. Now I'm a senior fellow, which I think means I used to run something but no longer do.

Pastor Darren:

But you've been in some significant rooms too. You've been in the room where it happened every now and again, Every now and then. Yeah, which you know.

Tim Bonds:

Kudos to you, you know, to have done something and done it in a way that gets you you where, where what you have is is coveted by important people these are just opportunities to serve really, and so the the any kudos would be only if the team that I represented and was the front person for several times in my career if they provided something of value. So if there was value, there was a whole room full of people that did it. If there was an error made, then it was usually my error alone.

Pastor Darren:

All right, Now you can relax. We're going to go to the three questions I told you I was going to ask so that he could prepare for them. So my first question and this is actually part of a prayer practice, a spiritual discipline, if you are interested in doing it. It's kind of a Lectio, kind of understanding a little bit, I guess. But at the end of the day, you might ask yourself these three questions, the first being where did I see God today? I asked him to talk a little bit about where he's seen God in his life.

Tim Bonds:

I see God when I see his angels at work. There are many in the world, many of them in this very room today, and I can give you some examples of that if you wish. But that would be my short answer. So let me give a very personal example. I mentioned that Nancy and I and our kids moved here in 1993. Our oldest was three years old at the time and we thought she was doing a great job with the transition Big move. She was born and grown up in St Louis. We were moving here, but she seemed to feel it was a great adventure until we moved into our house. For some reason, we moved in, her furniture was in her room and she didn't want to come out. So we walked in there to find out was something the matter? And she told us a story about a little girl that was all alone and her only friends were her lamp and her dresser. And so we thought you know, maybe the move has been harder on her than we thought it would have been.

Pastor Darren:

Yeah, that hurts the heart turns out.

Tim Bonds:

The very next day was Sunday. We came here our first time. There was a church event that night and one of the other little girls, just a few years older than Stephanie, took her by the hand and said would you like to play? And the answer was, of course she did, and she beamed, she brightened up and from then on she felt like she had a home, she had family, she had friends, she belonged somewhere, and it changed everything. So a small thing, but something as a father that really touched my heart, and I can say that many other times in my life. The most personal examples of what you ask when I see God's work present in the world has been when someone's reached out to my family, to one of my children, and made them feel worthwhile, a part of something.

Pastor Darren:

Do you see it, I'm going to push just one more time and then I'm going to go, darren, stop pushing, but one more time in in your, in your uh, professional world. You know, because that's I love your family, I got a family, I got angels in my family, but I'm wondering, because it's such a provocative place. You got angels in my family, but I'm wondering because it's such a provocative place. You've lived in and I recognize maybe it's a place where you don't have a lot of freedom to talk, but is there somewhere where you've had your heart warmed by people in that provocative place? You know, in the rooms that you've been able to walk in.

Tim Bonds:

There have been many times in my professional life when I've been really trying to help. You know a client that's really, you know, having a difficult challenge, a difficult problem. There have been many times when there's been someone that's really helped me and it's with no benefit to themselves. They just thought, look, I'm going to pitch in. I'll give one quick example, without naming names. First time I had a really significant leadership opportunity challenge. I was asked to take on a program director's job, which for me was a big deal. I mean, you had responsibility for a significant slice in that case of the Air Force's work with RAND. It was a big challenge. You had lots of people that'd be working with you and for you, all of whom were senior to me, and there was one particular individual that offered to work closely with me and said that, hey look, whatever you need I can help. This is a person who had many, many different leadership responsibilities that ran previously, all more senior than the one I was asked to do, didn't really need that job, but just volunteered to be helpful. So that's one of those times when you know it was help that was undeserved on my part and really, really helpful. I'll give you one other one though that touched my heart and really, really helpful. I'll give you one other one, though that touched my heart.

Tim Bonds:

We were in 2008. People may not remember, but it was a time I was acting as the leader of the Army Research Division at Grand. Then Wasn't yet the named vice president, the vice chief of staff came to us and said hey look, I'm afraid the Army's going to break. We've got soldiers deployed for 15 months. They're then home for nine months. When they're home, they're not really home. They're training, they're fixing equipment in the motor pool, they're working long hours, they're going to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin to train up for their next deployment. Their families are complaining they're home but not at home.

Tim Bonds:

So I don't know what. I don't know when I look at the numbers. Is there something you can do to help? And the answer is well, there's always something we can do to help. But during that process of looking at what the real stresses and strains on soldiers and families were, we met with a lot of families, some that had been terribly wounded in the war, some that had had loved ones sons, husbands, fathers killed in the war. But meeting with them and hearing their stories and hearing what was missing. That could be maybe made a little better for them. That was one of those times when I really felt sort of energized and motivated to really try harder to be helpful.

Pastor Darren:

Right, well, and to have the work you're doing mean so much to people who are needing, you know, a little dose of goodness and a dose of hope. All right, the second question in this prayer practice that you can do at the end of the day is to ask yourself where was God difficult to see or felt distant from me this last day? So I'll ask that question of Tim where in your life and in your journey was God more difficult to see and, again, feeling distant from where God is and the influence God has?

Tim Bonds:

On the world. So the way you'd pose it to me was when was God not present? I guess so.

Pastor Darren:

Did I? You did, because I don't have that theology.

Tim Bonds:

I mean, I'm checking that email it might have been what I heard rather than what you said, but but I think, I think the response is the same either way. Um, in all present, god is always, that right, always present, and that's my belief, matthew 28.

Tim Bonds:

Uh, Jesus promises to be with us always, even to the very end of the age. Um and john, psalm 13,. Same kinds of message. But I think where I've had an issue is when I haven't been fully present or I haven't known how to be helpful in a situation.

Tim Bonds:

The first time I was profoundly affected by that was when my dad was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer. He did not have long to live and so, you know, I was at a loss for what to do. I knew I couldn't change the course of the disease. I could spend time with him. I could listen to his stories. I could spend time with my mom, my brothers and my sisters. So that's what we did. We spent as much time as we could together during those last few difficult months and weeks and days, just trying to be present.

Tim Bonds:

It turns out many years later, in this very sanctuary, Dr. Nagel gave a sermon where there was a young child sick in the hospital, terminal illness, last few days or weeks of life, and some seminarians came to visit, and so one of the things they did was they drew some pictures to try to cheer the child up, and one of the pictures I remember Dr Nagel talking about was, you know, one of the seminarians standing with a shield like a superhero between the disease and the child. But the picture the child reached out to and took was a picture of someone just holding his hand, just being with him. And so it turns out I guess that's what we were able to do with my dad, and one of the reasons why I asked you as a scripture to have the parable of the Good Samaritan was the Samaritan in that moment couldn't do very much to change the underlying conflict between Israelis and Samaritans. The Samaritan in that moment couldn't change the fact that it was dangerous on the Jerusalem to Jericho Highway. He couldn't change what the crime statistics were there. But what he could do is he could stop and help. And I think one of the messages there for me, the more I think about that parable and reflect on it, is there's always something you can do to be helpful, like the story with the Army coming to ask us about what do we do for soldiers that are having this terribly fast, rapid cycle of deployments and short times at home before going back again. So that's what I'd offer.

Tim Bonds:

If I could just offer one more example. When our youngest child, when it was very clear to Nancy and I that she would struggle her whole life, have a profound struggle, doing things that most of the rest of us find to be simple or routine. I was at a loss again. Luckily for me, nancy had an immediate instinct of what to do, and so we changed everything. We changed our approach to parenting, we changed what our priorities were, we changed our whole life plan and life goals, and it's been helpful. It's a way for us to be helpful and it's been enriching to us. And so I think again, looking back at the parable of the Good Samaritan, there's always something that one can do. There's always some action one can take. It may cause some change, it may need some reflection, but there's always something one can do.

Pastor Darren:

Yeah, and how often do we, in those difficult times or the times that God feels different, distant, we more limit ourselves instead Where's God? I'm going to sit still. I'm going to sit still. I'm going to be disappointed, I'm not going to stick my neck out, when, in fact, what I hear you saying and I think I agree more often than not, the best thing to do is something.

Tim Bonds:

That gets into your third question.

Pastor Darren:

Yeah, which we're going through well, all right. So third question in this prayer practice that again I invite you to consider end of the day. Good way to end the day is to ask yourself what can I do to have made God feel more present, or even be more present in those times where God felt distant?

Tim Bonds:

So just about 26 years ago, again in this very sanctuary, there was a seminarian that gave a guest sermon Boyd will remember the title of that sermon was the Main Thing is to Keep the Main Thing. The Main Thing. I think she cribbed a little bit from Stephen Covey, but her message was as Christians, what is the main thing, what is it we should be doing? So I thought about that some and it took me back again to the parable of the Good Samaritan. You know most of my life, you know, of course, the Samaritan, an inspirational figure, someone to emulate, to try to. You know, take you know a real demonstration of what should be doing from. But I started thinking more and more about the Levite and the priest because on any given day I might lose track of what the main thing is. I think in Hollywood they call this losing the plot right. On any given day I'm likely to lose a plot a dozen times, two more times on Sunday, I'm liable to lose a plot today. But the question was, were they actually just uncaring and selfish or were they actually maybe even good people that just on that day were not doing the main thing? They weren't keeping sight of that. So I can imagine the Levite.

Tim Bonds:

I'm late to church. I've got to sing the choir. I need some brushing up on the anthem, so I need to make sure I get there early for practice. I can't stop. I might miss the service. The preacher's going to talk to me in front of the church. I got to keep on going. Luckily there's someone behind me that can take up this duty, so it's possible if I'm in that situation I may lose the plot. I might miss the main thing also. So I think that's one of the things to remember.

Tim Bonds:

And it strikes me also interesting in Luke, in the very next set of verses, it's the story of Martha and Mary. Okay, martha's a good person. She's hosting Jesus at her house. She's busy trying to prepare things, trying to make sure it's ready, trying to make sure there's a meal, and it's probably not just Jesus, it's probably his disciples too. Now, I don't know how things work at your house, but at my house, when we have company, it's all hands on deck. It's going to be at least a one or two day thrash to make sure things are perfect, but if it were Jesus coming, we'd be redecorating, we'd be remodeled.

Tim Bonds:

I mean, this is going to be a major effort. And so, in this Martha's thinking, jesus, can you ask Mary to help me? And Jesus' response is and I looked this up, okay, so I could remember it. But his response is Martha, martha, you're distracted by many things. Only one thing is important Mary's picked a better portion and it shall not be taken from her. And so Martha a good person trying to do the right things probably usually doing exactly the right things caring for Jesus and his disciples if she can lose the plot, I can lose the plot. So I think the important thing is to find a way to keep the main thing, the main thing.

Pastor Darren:

Yeah, I like that, and good use of the scriptures too. I didn't want to disappoint, yeah Well, and those church leaders as well. In some ways they would have to be concerned about what danger they might be bringing back to their flock, which is a mindset a church leader mindset too of could I bring a sickness back In a hygiene-oriented Old Testament existence? That would be a problem.

Tim Bonds:

You're thinking about the priest. He's on his way too. It could be pledged Sunday. I can't miss this.

Pastor Darren:

Sure, and then whoever went after this guy, you know why not go after me too. So there's a certain amount of risk you're taking on too, which I appreciate, and Mary Martha, mary Martha is a good one too, although I would argue sometimes there's a time in the kitchen and getting it ready and making sure we've brought it together, brought it to fruition, and then there's some time you've got to sit and listen, you know, and you've got to recognize where you are with that.

Tim Bonds:

People still wanted to eat that day.

Pastor Darren:

Yeah, right, yeah, and people are different too, anyway. No well, I appreciate that, though, and hopefully it's nourishing for you folks as well, as you consider your own journey and your own trying to understand where God is and what God is doing and how God is guiding you and how God is nourishing you all the time. Like we said, it sounds like we share a theology. God didn't go away. Just sometimes God feels further away, and that part of our challenge is to be able to bring God back in some significant ways, because the reality is, this world is a broken place in many ways, and there will be times where God is feeling distant and looking for us to take some sort of risk, you know, in order that God's love might flourish in some meaningful way. So let me ask everyone some appreciation for Tim and for sharing, and why don't we have a prayer and then we'll finish up with our worship? God, we are so grateful, we're grateful for Tim and his journey and his family and the ways that he has navigated this life to do his best to be exactly who you would have him be, and when those times came where he strayed from, that person have him be, and when those times came where he strayed from that person. He did his best to get back and to again become who you would want him to be. I thank him for that. I thank him for that vulnerability, because I know the people in this room struggle in the same ways.

Pastor Darren:

It is a lifelong journey to understand how we might be fully who God wants us to be in all situations, especially among the difficulty of a world that can be broken and can miss the mark as far as being a loving entity. So, god, help us on that journey. Let us be guided, let us be nourished, Let us all become fully who you have always intended us to be. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen, all right friends, thank you. Thank you, tim. I appreciate it. Thanks for sharing.