The Next Step

I am a big believer that we should focus on today, and accept what today brings. Even something as wonderful as a bowl of Oregon clam chowder can be frowned at when what you were really hoping for was Maine lobster. Exalting our hopes and expectations of what tomorrow should bring can cause us to miss some great things in the here and now.

On the other hand, setting out to accomplish a task that can't be completed in one day tends to make each day significant in a bigger process. I didn't become the guitar player I am today by hoping someday I would, and I probably won't become the guitar player I want to be by hoping that I will. The things I have accomplished today are the sum of a thousand days working toward it.

There is a professor I had last semester that I honestly didn't like much, but that doesn't mean he's always wrong. There was very little I took away from the class but one good thing was this, When God makes a squash, He takes 8 weeks. When he makes an oak He takes a hundred years.

There is a passage in Psalms that says that those established in God's way of doing things will be like a tree planted by rivers of water. I think everyone wants to be a big oak, whether that's in some skill, economic status, social standing, relationship, or faith, but we try to do all these little things to shortcut the process.

Churches are a great example of quick and easy routes. In the past four years I've probably heard a pitch for at least twenty different methods of growth, lasting change, and ways to 'do church'. They all seem novel, and exciting, and make a lot of promises, but they last about as long as a Twinkie in my hands.

Sometimes people I trust and respect allow me to cut them open and count their rings as I listen to them talk about how each one was formed. During conversations like that I try to figure out how to replicate that for others, maybe with a five week series, then I realize that the solid trunk I am examining was fifty years in the making and travelled through long seasons of forest fires, drought, floods, and watching their neighbor get chewed down by a beaver. You can't replicate something like that in five 45 minute sessions. And yet we try.

Accomplishing long term goals are difficult in our culture, because we're so used to things that get done at the speed of light. Maybe to readjust yourself, go out into the forest and find a little tree next to a big one and stare at it for a 24 hour period and see how much it grows. Then think about the fact that in fifty years that little tree will be the size of the one that stands next to it now.