3 Small Ideas With Huge Consequences
October's small serialized novel "needs" to be written. At least I think it does. So before we take a month off from our normal get-togethers, I want to share with you 3 essential ideas that have shaped my life.
The Gift of Faith
Pruning
The New Year
The Gift of Faith
Hebrews Chapter 11
1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
I know it seems like I am constantly complaining about things the Church has gotten wrong. But the reason I do this is because there are such gifts and immeasurable treasure that we are being denied. And I'm willing to grant that this is not malicious; rather, the church leaders themselves do not really understand or appreciate the great gifts YHWH has for us.
Take the matter of faith. For all too many centuries "faith" has come to mean believing whatever the church leaders tell us we need to believe. In short, "faith" has become equivalent with "belief." Even Webster's Dictionary defines faith as "unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence."
But, really friends, the Bible gives us a very different picture. Just read the 3rd verse above again. Translation? (Are you ready?)
Faith is the power that created the universe.
Jesus said in Matthew 17:20,
I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.
Well, here's another example of my brilliant photography:
That little dot to the left of the penny is a mustard seed(!)
Faith that size could move mountains.....NOTHING, even creating universes, would be impossible for us.
Now, I want to give you just one simple, practical example from my own life.
A few months ago I was working on a project with a client. It took much longer than we thought, and really wasn't going all that well. I was hot, tired, irritable, my back hurt, and I just couldn't wait until we were done and they left. I knew that as soon as that happened I could lay down, relax, and all would be well.
Then, almost like a light from heaven, it hit me.....Faith....Not just something to believe in, but a certainty of something not seen.....And all of a sudden, then and there, I (by faith) "collapsed time", thought about how I would feel when we were done as though it had already happened, and felt the relaxation and peace sweep over me. The rest of the session proceeded without any further discomfort on my part.
Look.....say you are sick.....Odds are 99% that eventually you will get well. So, what do you do to "bridge the gap" between the pain you feel here and now, vs. the healing and health you will receive in the future? Is suffering through it all really the only thing available to you?
No. "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
One (just one) of the gifts of faith is that it is able to act like a "bridge over troubled waters", allowing us to receive here and now the peace, healing, love and joy we are hoping for and working for.
That is a power. It is real. We can use it whenever we want to.
Think about all of the things you have ever worried about in your entire life. And ask yourself, in all honesty, if any of that anxiety ever helped you one little bit. At all. One way or the other, you got through the situation. "Oh but you don't understand....this is really bad...." I do understand. Really.
You can live right now as though you are already on the other side of your problem. Big or small, it always works. All of your past troubles are just memories of experience, right? Well, one of the gifts of faith is being able to turn this trouble, here and now, into a memory. You can live right now like this situation has already been fixed and it is in your past. And the more certain you are of that, the "greater your faith", the more you are able to live your victories and blessings here and now.
I cannot prove this to you. You will have to try it yourself.
Pruning
We are presently facing a crisis of unparalleled proportions in the U.S. Forestry Department. You see, for decades the policy has been to immediately put-out any fires that might get started in the National Parks. The problem? Now those forests are so unnaturally overgrown, that they are becoming diseased, strangled, and full of so much dead wood that they are a major, major fire hazard - not to us, but to themselves. Listen carefully:
Since we have spent so much time making sure they have no fires at all, even normal, small ones from lightening, some forests are now in danger of being totally destroyed by even the tiniest flame.
Get it? Regular fires are a natural part of life for those forests.....have been for millions of years.....In fact, there are some flowers (sorry, can't give you the exact name because I've forgotten it) that will only bloom and reproduce after a fire....they need the extra carbon in order to thrive.
And through our interference the lives of those forests are threatened....If the "little" fires had been allowed to continue, then Nature's organic way of thinning-out the forest's dead brush would have worked as it always did until the U.S. Government stepped in to try to destroy everything. (oops....sorry....) But now, with decades of accumulated dry timber, the threat is that even the tiniest spark will be fueled to overrunning the entire forest.
Nature's normal, small, localized pruning has been thwarted. As a result, the entire structure is threatened.
Folks, this is part of what I call "Sermons From Nature", another idea I hope to live long enough to get to. There is a very important lesson here!
Look, I am not going to cry in the beer I no longer drink, but the last month has been (on a human, personal level) quite devastating. I'm talking 2 major "life-long" dreams, both painfully crushed into nothingness at the same exact time. The details don't matter. What does matter, as I've so often said, is the realization that life is 10% (or is it 5%?) what happens to us and 90% how we react. And believe me, every single word I write here comes screaming back to me, like a cosmic "Oh you think so, huh? Well how about this?" And I know 3 things with absolute certainty:
- I (and all teachers) are challenged daily to make sure we "practice what we preach."
- I am being pruned.
- So are you.
Look at this picture:
3 years ago each of the stalks on the plant on the right looked like the bare stalk on the left. The one on the left (obviously) has just been pruned.
 | We must get regularly pruned. Our hopes, dreams, desires, friends, work, all of it must constantly get adjusted and re-evaluated as we and life's circumstances change. |
| That regular, tiny pruning helps keep the "entire system", aka your life, healthy. |
| Pruning in and of itself is not fun. Just ask the plant on the left. Just ask me. But it is a valuable, necessary part of life. |
| It is, indeed, the pathway to lush, vibrant growth. Just ask the plant on the right. Just ask me. |
The New Year
Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year 5761.
Every New Year is a new beginning.
We prune-off the old, and turn toward focusing on the new challenges and growth ahead.
And it all becomes real through the power of faith.
Faith, Pruning, and the New Year.
The Three in One.
Shalom.
