A Question Is Not an Answer

   Saint Augustine wrote that "Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in You."  It is so true.  What can happen, in the absence of the aforementioned state of divine rest is a sense of agitation and unrest.   We must operate in and out of this sense of peace, whether in transition, or conflict, or wondering what the next step is in our journey.  This kind of assurance is an absolute necessity in knowing lots of things that rise above the mere need to know good principles. 

  For instance, when people are asking the question of a lifelong mate, certain principles will definitely be instructive;  seek a mate that has good character, who has the ability to focus on someone else's needs and not just their own selfish interests, etc..  These and other bedrock principles are essential in the matrimonial arena.  But when it comes down to cases, you need to know that Susan or Fred is not merely a qualified candidate for the job;  you need to divinely know that they are THE ONE.  No amount of principles will yield that specific information.  So we push past principles and concepts and we ask God:  is he or she the one?  We might even ask our friends to ask God with and for us.  Whether the question is about who we will marry, or where we should move, or the house we should buy, the degree we should study, or the vocation we should pursue, knowing exactly what God thinks, and asking Him to speak specifically and guide precisely is paramount.  We want to get things like these right the first time because of the headaches involved in having to fix a failure. 

  The one thing that all of us crave, in critical times in our lives, in places where we feel tried and tested, or in times where we are asking more questions than answers, is to know that we are being guided and led by the Holy Spirit.  We long to know that we are walking along the road of life knowing that the road has been built and prepared by God for us.  Just knowing that you are where you are supposed to be, even if we are in the midst of difficulty, is consolation and confirmation all by itself.  Even if, on that road, you cannot see your destination, or cannot even see around the next bend, to know that God is there with you, telling you that you're ok is all you need to take the next step.  And, until He indicates, the next step is not an option.

  None of us like to ask a question and to have the question left hanging there, unanswered.  When our questions go unanswered we humans have a strong tendency to allow our minds' imagination to fill in the blanks.  And when we do that we usually get it wrong and we make mistakes and we make decisions we wish could un-decide.  Often, in lieu of the answers we desire, we are strongly tempted to, and frequently give in to the temptation to act on the basis of our questions.  The problem with this kind of plan is that a question is not an answer.

  When we act or judge on questions rather than answers, the Bible describes us as being in the middle of an offense.  Without going into detail a biblical offense manifests in 2 distinct forms.  Both forms, however, are toxic and hurtful to our souls if we permit them time to grow and fester in us.  The first manifestation is what we commonly think of as an offense:  we are hurt because someone hurt us, or we perceive it.  The second one has a different nuance to it:  it is when we allow unresolved and unanswered questions - questions asked to another person, or a question we have asked God, to evolve into accusations and judgements.  One thing we need to learn in order to overcome such a dynamic is that a question is not an answer.  Either manifestation of offense has detrimental consequences to the actions that arise from how we process offense.

   Let me use an example that I am very familiar with, as a pastor of a church.  In my twenty-plus years as a minister, I have seen hundreds, yea thousands of people come into a church, stay for a while, and then leave that church.  Some of those parishioners will actually come and counsel with me about their desire to go to a different church.  The reasons are multitudinous:  a new job in a new location, going to church where my wife/girlfriend/boyfriend, friends/parents go to church, etc..  Some people have even been audacious and brave enough to tell me that I am not what they were looking for in a pastor/preacher/teacher/leader.  However, the majority of people whom I've seen leave, I am actually not aware of this change for a few weeks.  One day, a few Sundays down the road and I notice so-and-so is not there and hasn't been there for a month.  It's not that I'm not mindful of my parishioners' attendance.  The fact is that I don't try to micromanage their attendance;  I'm not the church attendance police.  I rather have a tendency to cut them slack and honestly believe the best.  I choose to think that they have been gone for perfectly legitimate and probably important reasons.  It seldom enters my mind that somebody is secretly potting to leave the church.  Consequently, most people that leave the church do so without the pastor suspecting a thing.  After a few weeks' absence I do begin to investigate and am usually mildly stunned to find out that they're gone and it's a permanent arrangement.  

  For many of those people who choose to leave without giving their pastor the benefit of a conversation, I believe many of them leave because they have questions that have gone unanswered.  Unfortunately, a question is not an answer.

  These questions may have something to do with their relationship with the pastor or leader or teacher in the church.  The question may be in the area of something the pastor said in the Sunday sermon, or something they didn't say.  It may be a financial question about the church is spending(or not spending) money.  It may be a question about how leadership handled itself in a situation with a friend of theirs.  In the end, it often times comes down to an issue of an unanswered question.  And a question is not an answer.

  In another example:  Have you ever been in serious conflict with another person?  Was it so serious that you were unwilling or unable to speak to one another for a period of time?  Perhaps this person wasn't even aware of the offense they caused, but you were and you temporarily withdrew from contact with the person.  What usually takes place in the absence of contact is that we have imaginary conversations with this person.  The imaginary conversations are structured in such a way as to make us look like the champions and the other to look bad and shameful.  Why is that?  The best answer is that in the absence of not really knowing what's going on, and in the absence of forgiveness and charity, we tend to mentally fill in the emotional and situational blanks with our imagination.  Also, in the absence of forgiveness and charity, we commonly fill in those blanks, looking at the situation through the lens of fear.  Fear never allows us to imagine the best, but the worst; the worst in situations, the worst in people.  

  Fear never has answers, at least real answers, only imagined ones.  You've heard the acronym people use for F-E-A-R:  False Evidence Appearing Real.  We take that false evidence an use it to come to faulty conclusions about the person who offended us, or the leader who said or didn't say the right thing, or . . . you get the picture.  False evidence doesn't yield answers, but only raises more questions.  Sadly questions are not answers.

  I would bet a whole week's pay on the idea that when people leave a church to go to another church, they usually leave with a question.  They let that question serve as an answer.  But a question is not an answer.  

  As I have faced difficult situations and monumental transitions in my life I always endeavored to not get too hung up on the questions that I ask:  the what, why and where questions.  Instead I make sure that whatever course I pursue, whichever path I go down, I try to do so having heard the answer and not having acted on the basis of an unanswered question.  I admittedly have been on a learning curve with this, and am growing and getting better.  

  What's at stake in the life of following God and pursuing Him with and despite the questions we all have about life, marriage(or not), career, education, or changes and transitions?  What's at stake is that we learn to live a life based on answers and not questions.  The Bible says that when we live and build a life based upon accumulated unanswered questions, we increasingly live our lives out of a place of offense - toward others, and even toward God.  Offense diminishes our capacity to hear God clearly and distinctly above all the other voices competing for our attention.
  
  

How Walt Disney Saved My Day (Part 3)

  

  

  

  Exultant from our conquest of Los Angeles, we relaxed a bit and though about how easy it was going to be going the rest of the way home.  The vehicle was almost going to drive itself home.  It was like a horse heading for the barn, needing no coaxing at all.  

  Something funny happened right about the time we were breaking out the victory cigars.  And without Walt Disney there to bail us out, things might have turned out drastically different, allowing us to 'snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.'

  When we were driving down to San Diego, we tried to get a real good look at how the exits would look from the opposite direction.  I would have my lovely co-pilot, Fatima, crane her delicate neck around after we exited the 118 to enter the 210.  In other words, I wanted to see what the signs actually said when facing northward, approaching our exit from the 210 and getting onto the 118.  And she reported what she saw and it all seemed pretty straightforward.  

  Except coming to the end of the 210, in anticipation of seeing the exit sign for the 118, we saw arrows and indicators for everything EXCEPT for the 118.  We saw indicator arrows to here and there.  We as arrows pointing to the 5, but we didn't want to take the 5.  Honestly when we came south, I swear we never touched the 5.  The 5 crossed under the 118 just before the 118 merged into the 210, so we knew we would not encounter the 5 in our return journey.

  In a panic, I took an exit that I had no business taking:  the dreaded 134, also known as the Ventura Freeway.  I couldn't have erred more egregiously than if somehow I'd steered us 180 degrees in the opposite direction on the 210.  The 134 was sucking us back into the vortex of downtown LA.  Literally, if you cracked open the car windows, you could hear the sucking sound of downtown LA drawing everything into its gaping snarly maw.   Visions of another intimate tour of Hollywood at 3 miles per hour flashed in my brain.  Fortuitously, I had the sense, a gift given to me at that very moment by my beautiful co-pilot, Fatima, to get off at the nearest exit, regroup and plan how to get back on track.

  As it happened, that exit was for South Buena Vista Street, I believe in southwestern Burbank.  At the time the street name registered nothing in my mind.  The words, "we're lost!" seemed to superimpose themselves on every sign we laid eyes on.  Having gone down the street a few blocks, we saw nothing that gave us any sense of hope, such as a sign that said, "This way to the 118."  It seemed to be a sort-of downtown-ish business street.  

  Once again, wisdom from my lovely co-pilot prevailed and we stopped.  The only thing we saw on the street that looked like a place to ask directions was back toward the freeway, where we saw an entrance to a business complex of some sort.  At the entrance to the complex was a security building.  We drove back to the entrance and turned into the complex, only to discover that we'd found our way to none other that Walt Disney Studios (hence the name Buena Vista Street)!

  I timidly pulled up to the guard station.  There was a barrier preventing access into the actual complex, so we had to stop anyway.  With the window rolled down, the security guard came up to greet us and ask us our business here.

  I'd heard from multiple sources about the kind of man Walt Disney was.  One thing I've heard and read over and over is that Walt Disney was a man who didn't just want to build a brand or a business, but a culture.  And specifically, he wanted to imprint his own courteous, positive, happy, joyous personality onto everyone associated with his name and brand.  I knew this to be true at Disneyland.  But what about the guard station at the entrance to Walt Disney Studios?  Did that imprinting extend even to security guards.  As one former executive at Walt Disney wrote about this, he said:  "You don’t have to be happy to work at Disney, but you do have to act happy for eight hours."

  The refreshing and resounding answer was:  YES!  This was a guard that Walt would have been proud of.  He was courteous, positive and happy (I didn't get enough time spent with him to see joyousness).  He treated us like we were his most important assignment at that moment.  He knowledgeably oriented us to where we were and understood where we wished to be.  And although he didn't see the sense in having us go back to the place where I'd messed up, he did propose a brilliant way forward to get us right back on track.

  I would venture to say that Walt Disney Saved our whole day.  This security guard (I wish I had remembered his name) exhibited the values of the Founder and helped a couple of lost kids in the big city.   I don't know if the security guard was just having a great day, or was simply emulating the values of his boss.  Whatever the case, we were so glad to have been lost where we were.  It was simply Providence, proof that God loved us!

  The alternative route also included another Diamond Lane which allowed us to continue cruising at the same pace we'd experienced all the way through Pasadena.  We were home in record time (6 hours to be exact.  I am told that six hours is amazing, considering the obstacle that is LA rush hour traffic.

  We still don't exactly know what happened back on the way from the 210 to the 118.  But we have found the Southern Passage.  Next time, we will be ready to face the difficulty and, this time, meet the challenge.  But we know, even if we do the unthinkable, and get lost on the way, Walt Disney is going to save our day once again!

How Walt Disney Saved My Day (Part Two)

Our business had concluded, and we got back into the vehicle right around 2 o’clock in the afternoon. On the one hand, it was good to be headed back. On the other hand, it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon, not exactly the perfect time to leave San Diego with an eye toward navigating our way through rush hour Los Angeles traffic. Especially vivid in our imagination was the possibility of another slow tour through downtown LA, where we’d be stuck seeing sites instead of mileposts.


This time, we told ourselves, things were going to be different. We consulted with maps, we talked to experienced commuting friends, we asked Google. We almost felt like pioneers asking people to guide us over the vast wilderness and to guide us safely to where it was we’d be homesteading. Heck, I think we’d even talked to someone at the coffee shop, who happened to be discussing cars and streets to a friend.


And all the advice and knowledge seemed to distill into a simple solution: go back the same way we came. It may be a little out of the way, but if one is talking about time (and we were), better time would be made even IF we drove a greater distance to achieve it.


In places like where I grew up, in Montana, when someone asked how far it was to a certain town, we could tell them the answer in miles. But, more often than not, it was actually more helpful to tell them the distance in hours. Because of traffic conditions in Los Angeles in the afternoon, from 3 o’clock to 6:30 pm, distance became irrelevant. In fact, a driver will often see electronic signs which tell the driver how many minutes it will actually take, because of said conditions, to reach the junction of another freeway or turnoff. Distance is meaningless when you are basically stranded in a parking lot which is collectively still moving along at a snail’s pace. So, when the sign says that you’re 25 minutes away from the next freeway, and the freeway is only 5 miles away, well, you get the point.


Armed with knowledge, faith and hope, we jumped onto the 805 and headed north until we reached the 15, which also took us north, but in a somewhat northeasterly direction. And we were pleasantly surprised that we veritably cruised all the way up to the city of Norco. No slowdowns, no traffic jams. We were starting to feel like geniuses.


Also, I must say that we had ‘help’. Our WAZE app on my phone was up and running the whole time. For those of you not familiar, WAZE is something like the equivalent of Facebook for drivers. Other drivers, who also use the app, will post something they see or experience while driving, so as to give the drivers behind them a ‘heads up’ for things like traffic conditions, stalled cars, accidents, even the presence of law enforcement on the way.


In addition to all this, WAZE tries to be helpful in suggesting alternate routes for you to take that could potentially bypass traffic snarls and the like. I suppose one would find it very helpful if one was more intimately acquainted with the LA freeway system as a whole. However, such was not our case. Within a half hour of getting on the 15 WAZE would relentlessly suggest we bail on the 15 and take every and any road, highway or freeway. This became quite tiresome quickly because there are so many alternatives in the system. We almost became concerned that we were going to hurt WAZE’s feelings because we disregarded its frequent advice to seek an alternative path.


As a kind-of I-told-you-so from WAZE, we did encounter quite a bit of snarly congestion once we were about 10 miles from the junction of the 5, which is probably the biggest freeway in all of California. Once we experienced, again, the irrelevancy of distance and the 10 miles took us 40 minutes to crawl. We were tempted to think, in terms of score, LA Freeways 2 and us 0. And were were still in SOUTHERN LA!


Then, almost miraculously, conditions completely turned around. We got past the junction of the 5 and, poof!, things cleared up considerably. We didn’t allow our hopes to get too high, however. We still had yet to see what the Pasadena Freeway, or the 210, as they say in CA, offered in terms of passage. After all, it was about 4 p.m., the very height of rush hour traffic. Would there, could there possibly be any relief?


Seemingly, almost no one carpools in California, which is a gigantic waste, in my opinion. The chief reason for my humble opinion is summed up in two simple words: Diamond Lanes. The California Department of Transportation, or CalTrans for Short, has ingeniously installed Diamond Lanes on major freeways in the State. Except they don’t call them Diamond Lanes. They actually call them HOV lanes. I had to look that up and CalTrans say HOV is an acronym meaning ‘High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. The people who actually do the driving merely refer to them as Diamond Lanes, the reason being the symbol which appears on signage and the symbol painted on the actual road surface in the actual HOV lane.


Regardless of what you call them, it means one thing: you practically have your own, personal lane of traffic, while the other poor schmoes have to inch along with their fellow drivers in the non-High-Occupancy-Vehicles.


And what, pray tell, you may ask, constitutes a high occupancy vehicle? Don’t laugh, even though it sounds so completely and absurdly reasonable. A High Occupancy Vehicle, is a vehicle which has a minimum occupancy of . . . . are you ready? . . . of exactly TWO PEOPLE! A driver and a passenger. That’s it! Isn’t that nutty? If you basically want your own private highway, then all you have to do is go where you’re going with one other person. This is beautiful and sublime.


And you’d think that southern Californians would figure out a way to go to work with someone else. Nope. Truth is, the vast majority, something close to 99% of drivers have to or prefer to drive alone.


Consequently, we found ourselves with our almost-private highway as we stepped on the accelerator and bombed our way toward Pasadena. Now time and distance were beginning to equalize.


In addition to this, we were greatly aided by one other factor, and that was the fact that it seems like the majority of commuters were headed AWAY from Pasadena rather than TO it. The opposite lanes were a mess, a parking lot. We, however, were fortuitous enough to be traveling in the opposite direction than the majority. That, and having our precious diamond lane meant that we were rolling at warp speed on the 210. We never slowed down for traffic. We were geniuses! We were the kings of the freeway and we were exultant. We felt like the explorers who found they mythical Northwest passage, or like the crew of the Star Trek Enterprise who found a way through the Great Galactic Barrier (please watch Star Trek V: The Final Frontier).


We had three legs of our journey home to the Central Coast of California. Now all there we had was to find the exit to the 118 and our vehicle would almost become self-driving. What an accomplishment. How would we fare? I’ll tell you in the next installment.

How Walt Disney Saved My Day (Part One)

 
Walt Disney saved my bacon yesterday. 

  Yesterday, my lovely bride and I were racing home from the southern border near San Diego, CA.  We live on the beautiful central coast of California, near a beautiful seaside community called Pismo Beach.  All in all, it’s around 340 grueling miles from our home to the border.  Our meeting there lasted through the morning and we got into our vehicle at about 2:15 p.m., we turned our front bumper to the north and punched the throttle and sped off toward our beloved home.

  All the while I’m driving north I’m channeling Dionne Warwick.  I’m repeating, like a mantra, a line from the song:  Do You Know the Way to San Jose?  The bridge of the lyrics makes this short but poignantly loaded observation:  LA is a great big freeway. . . .

  She released the song back in 1968.  Actually Burt Bacharach penned the words a few years earlier, in 1966.  Anyway, if that was his observation fifty years ago, I wonder how he would have worded the song today?  Because the freeway system in Los Angeles and in southern California in general has expanded dramatically since then.  Looking at an AAA map of LA will not give you a sense of size and proportion of the complex maze of freeways, highways, state roads and thoroughfares that make up the area. 

  That is, until you actually try personally navigating your way through it.  Such was our fate on Monday. 

  At the outset, I will say this positively for the system;  there are an almost endless combination of roadways to get you from point A to point B.  And, when you are not competing with the other millions of Angelenos who are also trying to get from point A to point B, you will find the system quite ingeniously handy.  This, however, was not one of those times.

  We’d made this trip before.  The last time we made the journey we drove into downtown Los Angeles at the height of the going-home rush hour.  When we veered onto the 101, near downtown LA, (Let the Reader know - this is how you speak about the road systems in California; you always place a ‘the’ in front of any highway, whether it is a county, state or federal stretch of road.  So, when you describe your trip, you’ll say something like, “Yes, I took the 805 to the 210.  Then I got on the 118, then skipped over to the 126, to the 101.”), we spent the next 90 minutes cruising at a blistering 15 miles per hour. 

  I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be driving than parking.  Rush hour traffic is like taking a cheese grater to my last nerve.  But we decided to make the most of it.  After all, most of the time we absolutely zoomed through the city, either not paying attention, or unable to pay attention to all the touristy features and landmarks that make Hollywood the attraction that it is.  In addition to the famous landmark, the Hollywood sign, we saw dozens of buildings, parks, cultural centers, as ethnic communities as we slloowwwly made our way north.  It was almost like going on a tour, just us and our 10,000 friends in the cars and lanes next to us and around us. 

  We finally got home about 2 hours later than we should have.  Right then and there, we vowed, never again!  We would never get caught like that again.  But we also knew that, no matter how strong our resolve to not get stuck in LA rush hour traffic, it was easier said than done.  It would take both planning and luck. 

  We knew we had 3 weeks until the next trip to San Diego.  So we researched and asked friends and consulted Google.  Then, on early Sunday afternoon, we embarked on the journey south.  This time we were feeling confident and hopeful that we would beat the system and avoid the agonizingly unpleasant delays.  So we took the 101 to the 126(Ventura).  We found a state road that allowed us to shortcut to the 118(Moorpark).  From the 118 we got right on to the 210(San Fernando) and overnighted with our friends, Gail and David, in Rancho Cucamonga.  There we rested, slept, took a deep breath and finished the drive, jumping back on the 210 until we found the 15.  We took the 15 south all the way until it merged with the 805(San Diego).  Once on the 805 we cruised to our appointment with lots of time to spare.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!  Our average speed was around 60 miles per hour. 

  We spent the next 5 hours doing what we went there to do.  All the while, looming in the back of our minds, was Dionne Warwick and the drive home.

  

The Developmental Power & Potential of Leverage (Part 2)

 
  In the previous post, I focused on David as an example of how leverage is a powerful spiritual law in the realm of personal development, advancement and destiny.  Recall the conversation he had with the king when he had volunteered to slay a giant without any previous giant-killing experience in his application resume.  But the young future-king listed his experience with lesser-grade experiences as qualifications to tackle the position, those experiences being the bear and the lion he killed as a young shepherd on his father’s sheep ranch.  What he did (with God’s help) was to leverage those lesser qualifying experiences into a weightier assignment.  And, it seems, David allowed this power of leverage to bring him along in the realm of advancement to his ultimate earthly destiny:  King of Israel.

  While not many of us have the lofty aspirations of becoming a king, prime minister, governor, or even mayor for that matter, we, all of us, live with a sense that we are meant for better things than we currently experience. 

  If one reads their bible, it’s apparent, even from a cursory examination, heaven sees us through lens of greater honor and destiny than we dare give ourselves credit for.  A life lived for God is a life with a daily confrontation with divine mystery.  King David himself muses in his song:  I cannot understand how you can bother with mere puny man, to pay any attention to him!  And yet you have made him only a little lower than the angels[ and placed a crown of glory and honor upon his head (Psalm 8:4-5). Paul says that we are always advancing from one level of faith to the next, one stage of glory to the next.  Advancement and promotion are built into the fabric of the Kingdom.

  And much of it has to do with the power of leverage.   But how?

  Let’s say, for example that one finds themselves on the front end of what promises to be a fruitful life, a life that has the potential to be better than we could ever imagine.  Even though one may not aspire to be a king, it’s not difficult to imagine oneself advancing far beyond their current station and position.  For example’s sake, let’s imagine someone who is just beginning their life of work or career.  And let’s imagine that the best job they could find was working at McDonalds.  I myself can identify with this, since my first job was at Kentucky Fried Chicken, in the days before it was renamed KFC.

  Most people who find themselves employed at McDonalds will not see this as the ultimate career choice.  However, for various reasons, this manifests as the best option they have at the time.  And let’s imagine, for example, that one of the many assignments the person has is to clean the restrooms.  One can imagine that this is what one might call ‘the bottom of the totem pole’ in vocational opportunities.  Not very appealing.

  Many people would never take a job like that because they feel that this kind of assignment is ‘beneath’ them;  they already have a built-in sense that this is not what they were born for.  This may or may not be true.  I tend to think it is only half true.  While none of are born for lowly things, we many times, unsuspectingly miss a golden opportunity to experience the power of leverage. 

  But let’s say that a person accepts the position, and, instead of looking at this this assignment as an inconvenient road bump on the path to greatness, they instead see cleaning bathrooms the same way the would-be King David saw his lowly charge on the backside of nowhere.  Instead of discounting the potential importance of the temporary commission as ‘sanitary engineer’ of the Golden Arches, one could see this a one of those ‘smooth stones’ that David put in his bag.  Could it possibly be that the momentary position scrubbing toilets leverage into something down the road?

  Even if there is no direct corresponding future comparison between cleaning bathrooms and doing whatever possibility awaits, there is something that always carries itself forward in one’s progression and promotion upward.  That something is simply called attitude.  Not just what we do, but how and why we perform the most menial tasks ALWAYS follow us to the next stepping stone. 

  As a caution, it must be said that stepping stones are just that.  Going from stepping stone to stepping stone is an indication of movement, but not necessarily of progress or promotion.  We all remember the joke of the two travelers who were driving, but were hopelessly lost.  The driver remarked to his passenger that he had no idea where they were going, to which the optimistic passenger replied, “Yes, but we are certainly making good time!”  Stepping stones are not a guarantee of progress.

  A good and positive attitude cultivated in a less-than-desirable job will not only follow a person to their next assignment, but, amazingly, can actually open the door for them!  Attitude always plays a critical role in the opportunities we have in and for promotion.  Attitude almost plays a critical role equal to aptitude.  Aptitude has to do with how you do something;  attitude is the why you do it.  Attitude is the grace to accept an assignment given you, regardless of how badly or not you wanted it.  Attitude says that nothing is ‘beneath you’ and that all you do you approach with the same importance and integrity you would if given higher and more meaningful things.


 
Also, in case one is tempted to think so, it goes without saying that this has nothing to do with a wage or pay.  Assignments come in all shapes and sizes.  Many of the most important ones have nothing to do with money.  Their reward is something more valuable than money.  For instance,  no matter how much money one has, money cannot buy or guarantee a good night's sleep.  Friendship is never a function of finance, but of fidelity in relation to another person.  If you have to buy friends, then all I can say is one gets what one pays for.  But when the pay stops, usually the friendship does too.

  Jesus speaks to this in his parable of the Talents.  In one of the tellings, a master gave his servants a certain amount of money to keep while he was gone.  Each was given different amounts.  When the master returned he asked the servants each to give account for what they did with what was given them.  Two of the three servants made good use of the money and showed impressive returns on the money.  In these two cases, the master not only praised them, but the servants experienced the power of leverage.  One servant, who was given 5 units of money was actually put in charge of 5 cities.  The servant with two, two cities.  Quite an example of the power of leverage!

  What we do with what’s been given us is the living laboratory where we put the power of leverage to the test.  To the degree we show us ready to learn and improve, and as long as we bring our “A” game (Attitude), we can invariably expect to encounter the incredible developmental  power and potential of leverage.

The Developmental Power & Potential of Leverage

 

One of the most fun things I did when I was a kid was to play on the teeter totter, a.k.a. seesaw.  For one thing it was something you got to do with a friend.  No matter how hard you wish for it, it is physically impossible to play teeter totter by yourself!  There simply had to be someone on the other end of the board in order for the thing to work.
 
  Another enjoyable aspect of the device is that, whether you understood it or not, you were interacting with complex physical and mathematical laws without even knowing it.  The beauty of it was that you didn’t need to know anything at all to participate in the joy of it.  And what you did understand about it was mostly experimental and not intellectual. 
 
  For instance, you quickly found out, purely by experimentation, that when you were heavier or lighter than the person on the other end of the device, it affected the the way it performed.  If you were the heavier of the two riders, it meant that had a little more control over the rate and speed of the ascent of the other end.  Also, being heavier, it meant that that you could control how long the other end stayed up in the air.  As hard as the the smaller person on the other end tried, that end was not coming down until you decided. 

  For the lighter passengers, the choices were different, but the experience came with its own particular pleasures and thrills.  Depending on the heft of your counterpart, you could likely experience something like what astronaut feels strapped to an ignited rocket.  When your seat hits the top of the teeter, you are, more often than not, launched a foot or two into the air, handing on for dear life to the handles in front of you.

  The teeter totter only has three basic parts to it:  the two ends of the board and something for the board to balance on.  Scientists call the balance point the fulcrum.  As six year olds, we didn’t even bother to identify or explain the parts, except maybe to say one end was the teeter and the other end the totter.  The middle thing was just the middle thing. 

  We also discovered something amazing about the teeter totter.  If we could move the board in one direction or the other, all of a sudden the skinnier kid became more powerful and the bigger kid less.  When there was an unequal distribution of board over the middle thing, things equalized between unequally sized kids.  Now the little kid could conceivably give the bigger kid a thrill that was usually reserved for the smaller.  Another was of saying this was that the little kid had the experience of being bigger, and vice-versa.

  What I’m talking about, of course, is the principle and reality of leverage.  It’s nothing new.  There is a quote from an ancient Greek philosopher, named Archimedes, in which he said, “Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.”  Leverage is a universal reality which equalize two unequal things. 

  The dictionary defines leverage as the action of a lever, that pivots about one point and that is used to move an object at a second point by a force applied at a third. The ‘third point’ described is the fulcrum.  The use of the fulcrum allows on kid to lift another kid over his head, with the use and power of the fulcrum.  When I was six, I probably weighed 50 pounds, fully clothed and soaking wet.  And, since, I had not taken up weight lifting by that time, I sincerely doubt if I could have lifted my best friend, Louie Hopewell, over my head.  I could have bear-hugged him and lifted his feet off the ground, but that would have been the extent of my six-year-old superpowers.

  But when Louie and I got on the teeter totter, we were instantly transformed into super boys!  Little did we know that we were engaging in deep and mysterious laws of the universe.  It was just fun.  Even if one of the older kids from the block wanted to take a turn, all I had to do was move the board a foot or so in my direction from the fulcrum, and it was game on!  I could lift a kid twice my size six feet up into the air, even though I was only four feet tall.  What a wondrous thing!

  There’s a story in the Bible about a young shepherd, named David.  Everyone at least knows about this story if they don’t actually know it.  A little shrimpy kid kills a giant, named Goliath.  The tale of the tape put Goliath somewhere at about 9 and a half feet tall.  It doesn’t say how tall David was; my guess is that it wasn’t as big by a long shot.  However tall David was, Goliath made him look shrimpy.

  In the story, David gets riled up when he heard Goliath talk smack about David’s God.  And, since no one seemed to be willing to take this big galoot on, David had the gumption to throw his hat in the ring.  It’s such a great story, people who don’t even regard the Bible as a good book can retell it accurately.  You can just about imagine steam coming out of David’s ears, so insulting was this Philistine giant.

  Since he’s the only volunteer, the king’s men take him to see the king, so he can interview for the job of giant killer.  Can you imagine the look of disappointment the king had on his face when, after his men tell him the great news that one of his soldiers agreed to eliminate this gigantic problem, here stands a young lad who, from all appearances, seemed to be the least qualified to do the job.  The king’s initial disappointing thought must have been, “what a bummer.”  But he goes ahead with the interview.  Miraculously, by the end of the interview, David was hired.  Why?

  It had something to do with leverage.

  So far I’ve described leverage as a universal physical law.  Leverage also, however, can definitely have application in the way we do life.  We can use the experiences we’ve had in this life so far and leverage them into something weightier and more meaningful and rewarding.  More specifically, when we handle the circumstances that life throws at us in a successful manner, we can, in turn, count on the fact that we will experience upgrade and promotion from said experiences.

  The story of David is a perfect example of how the experiences David had in younger years qualified him for, and promoted him into, his destiny with Goliath.

  When young David was standing before the king and being interviewed, one of the first and most obvious questions he had for the lad was, why do you think you’re qualified for this difficult and perilous assignment?  That’s a great question.  It’s a question that we are asked by bosses and potential employers, by leaders, and by parents.  And, if you’re anything like me, it’s a question I’ve asked myself on more than one occasion.  Something to the effect of:  who do you think you are?  What makes you think that you can take on a higher, more complex, and difficult assignment than the one in which you are currently laboring?

  It can be a daunting question, especially if you are insecure, or when you compare yourself to people with more experience or success. 

  As young David stood there, he could think of only two experiences in his life that would qualify him for such a promotion.  You see, his only job experience up to this point in his life was that of tending sheep on his family sheep ranch.  He spent lots of time with sheep.  He made sure the sheep had food to eat and water to drink.  Most of all, it was his assignment to make sure that the sheep were always safe, no matter what.  Loss of livestock meant loss of revenue for the family.  It was imperative he kept his father’s flock secure and protected from outside predators that saw those sheep as dinner.

  A couple of times, according to David, he had to physically defend the sheep from two such predators:  a lion and a bear.  In both cases he prevailed, killed his opponents, who may have been bigger and more powerful than he was.  In any case, since he handled those two assignments, David believed they would leverage him into a higher(taller) one with equal success.  These were his exact words: “I have done this to both lions and bears, and I'll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God!”

  This convinced the king.  The king promoted him to the status of giant-killer, shook his hand, bade him Godspeed, and the rest is history.  Goliath did become just like one of those (now dead) predators.  Another way of saying it is David leveraged his previous training and experience into a greater and higher application and assignment.  He allowed less-weighty factors and used them to bear the greater weight of his new position.  Not only that, but we need to let the biblical record show that David didn’t stop there.  From being the giant slayer he leveraged his experience into becoming the king’s top military commander, and, ultimately, the king himself.

  In part two of this blog, I will explain how this works in life.  Although its not as empirical as the laws of the physical universe, leverage is a powerful force in life.  If it factors into the life of a shepherd boy-come-king, it may quite possibly factor into our everyday, hopes, dreams and destinies as well.

Experiencing Shock and Awe from An Unshakable Vantage Point

 

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe -- Hebrews 12:28

  You'd have to be living under a rock for the last few decades to see that we are living in tumultuous times.  When the Lord himself gave us a forecast of the sociopolitical, meteorological and even geological signs of His return, it must have sounded so fantastical to those who first heard the words of His prophecy:  

 

   “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; ²⁶ men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.  Luke 21:25-26

  In the words of Jerry Lee Lewis, "There's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on,"  even to the point of the earth is itself shaking with acute intensity.  

  We in the 21st century are well-acquainted with such shaking.  In addition to the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and mega storms, we experience vigorous rumblings in the halls of government and in the very fabric of society.  We see shaking abroad with the daily 'war and rumors of war' being reported, uprisings and anarchy in the Middle East.  There's hardly a place on this planet that we can turn to without seeing foundations undulating and crumbling.  

  And the effect of experiencing this shaking is predictable.  Jesus explained the emotional side affects of such conditions:  men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth(verse 26b).

  This is short of like the 'Shock and Awe' that was unleashed against Baghdad in 2003, when coalition forces, led by the United States, invaded the country of Iraq in order to rid the world of a very real source of antagonistic geopolitical instability.  Wikipedia defines shock and awe "is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight."

  I think this is a good word for us today.  I say that because, in spite of all the shaking, the people of God should be able to process all this with the utmost sense of hope, courage, faith, and especially peace.  Let me explain.

  The first thing I want to offer to us is that Jesus didn't speak these prophetic words with an eye toward creating a fearful, shrinking and cowering people.  In His farewell address to His disciples Jesus said Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid(John 14:27).  And why would He say that?  These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world(John 16:33).  Jesus was inviting them(and us) to see all these things from a heavenly viewpoint, a viewpoint which sees all things in the complete and utter absence of fear.

  Secondly these foretold events of the end times, a season and time in which many believe the world is presently in - this is not that last final word on reality.  When Jesus spoke these words, He did so with an eye toward preparing his people for what was coming after all these things.  He instructed us thusly:  Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near(Luke 21:28)  There is a greater reality coming, a reality greater than all the shakings and tremblings being emitted from the planet today.  "Our redemption" is nothing less than the return of Jesus for His people, His church, His Bride.

  Finally, I would like to suggest that we really need to consider the source of all these 'shakings'.  If we shortsightedly attribute them to the devil, then not only will we be, like the rest of the world, prone to fear and terror, but we will completely miss the 'big picture'.  And when we miss the big picture I believe we will be ineffective, as the people of God, in communicating Heaven's message of Good News to the world.  What I mean is that instead of communicating the message of the heart of a loving Father, we will instead construe these signs and portents as being prophetic omens from an angry and vengeful Judge, who never was happy with the world in the first place, and Who is happy that the whole experiment will finally be over and He can throw the planet into the dustbin where is belongs.  Good riddance!

  This is not to say that we should be End Times Pollyannas and ignore the swift, sudden and cataclysmic way in which God will impose His will and power on the planet and its corruption.  2 Peter 3:10 comes to mind, as one of many examples.   But we must not let this be the lens through which we communicate to the world the heart of the Person who is coming to redeem it.

  So what is the source or cause of all the shakings that are happening in the world?  The writer of Hebrews gives us a spectacular clue and insight into the source of all this shaking.  He says,  See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, ²⁶ whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” (Hebrews 12:25-26)   

  Speaking to the audience out of a context of faith(See chapter 11) the author has been teaching as to the revelatory nature of faith and how it allows us to 'see' Jesus "the author and finisher of our faith"(Hebrews 12:2) who is pacing us with a view toward an endurance which finishes the race well.  Without the ability to have a genuine spiritual capacity to perceive the presence of God in the midst of trials, we may succumb to our weakness and lapse into fear and quite possibly unbelief.  Unbelief, the writer explains, is contagious and infectious(verse 15) - maybe even more infectious than faith itself.  

  It is faith that gives us the ability to process trials and events from a heavenly perspective, which, in turn, allows us to partake, on an ongoing basis, the very nature of Heaven itself:  righteous, peace and joy(Romans 14:17)  When we live in this perspective and feed from the resources of heaven, fear is not a consequence or an option, because we see the actual source of all the commotion and turbulence happening on the earth:  the voice of God.  The writer of Hebrews the Voice was the cause of all the tremblings of the earth in the past.  Then he says but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven."  

  What this tells us is that we can trace every instance of sociopolitical, geopolitical, geologic and meteorological instability to the Voice of God.  Not only that, but since God is speaking again, it should not surprise us that his Voice is wreaking havoc on the world today.  And what is the intended affect of God speaking over the earth today?: it indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain(verse 27).

  If it is the voice of God that's causing all this ruckus on the earth, then that begs the question:  what is God saying that is getting the world and all it's human and natural systems so agitated?  Well, we can't know for sure but we can make a reasonable assumption.  In the Book of Revelation, the 22nd chapter and the 12th verse, the writer, John, has the Lord Jesus himself speaking(in red letters): And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.  God is announcing, to the whole world, to kings and rulers, to tectonic plates, to the atmosphere His soon return.  This has the whole world operating in panic mode.

  Except, that is, His Bride, the Church.  When God speaks to those who oppose His rule and reign, His voice causes panic, fear and dread.  However, when God speaks to His people, just the opposite happens:  SHALOM.   His voice inspires and carries with it the infinite peace of the Kingdom of God.  And when God's people experience the shalom of God, then there is a settling, a calming, a divine sense of assurance, and a feeling of solidity where they stand.  

  And that is what the writer of Hebrews is saying in the last part of the 12th chapter.  He says, "SINCE(not if) we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."  It is in the distinct absence of fear that we can explain and communicate to our world, not that something bad is going to happen, but something very good.  And God wants everyone to get in on the secret.  God wants everyone to join the party.  

  So while you and I are out in our 'mission fields' we no doubt will see people whose hearts are reeling around like a drunken sailor on Saturday night.  Their hearts are so unsettled, as they should be, because of all the shaking that's occurring around them.  That's the moment we can, with steadiness and balance and ballast, tell them that there is a way to get some 'solid ground' under them.  And then we can show them how to stand on the Solid Rock, Jesus.