2 Cor. 5:17–Old Has Passed; New Has Come

2 Corinthians 5:17–"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

With the New Year here, we fill our lives with resolutions and plans.  Not the least of these is the very average resolution to be 'better' this year than last, whatever 'better' means is based on any number of conditions: eating less, working out more, working less, spending more time with family, etc.  It would seem that the point of all these resolutions is based on the basic premise that who we are this year will in some way(s) be a distinct improvement on who we were.  But where all resolutions fail Christ succeeds.

You see, the issue is not that we would change our behavior but that we would have a transformation of character altogether.  Without a complete of heart, mind, and soul, we would have no ability whatsoever to truly adjust our behavior at all.  It is this that Jesus offers.  More accurately, this sort of full-person transformation is something that only Jesus offers.

As we begin 2014, our prayer should be a full-person Jesus-led transformation and nothing less!

Proverbs 16:9–Plans Established by God

Proverbs 16:9–"The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps."

2014 is upon us, a new year has arrived full of potential and promise.  My prayer for you this year is that you would see God's awesome blessings in your life and that you would see Him establish your heart's desire this year.  That is why this verse seems so appropriate today, New Year's Day.  Even the best laid plans require the Lord's input for success.  Because of this, I don't think that we can overemphasize the necessity for prayer as we consider and develop our goals for 2014.  For only through God will we be blessed!

Proverbs 16:9–Humans Plan, God Establishes

Proverbs 16:9: "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps."

The whole 16th chapter of Proverbs deals with this concept, but it is this verse that hits the nail on the head.  And it is an important verse to remember every so often, because isn't this just the case?  That we would plan each step but it requires the Lord for our plans to be established and reach fulfillment.

I can speak from experience that my heart seems to always be brimming with plans but it has been only when I have commited these plans to the Lord that I have been blessed to see these plans reach their potential, not at all because of my expert administration but because of God's great goodness.

It is, thus, a necessary remembrance to put every plan before God who ultimately establishes our steps!

Planning in order to be More Effective

My natural inclination is towards disorder and improvisation.  At a very early age I was diagnosed with pretty severe ADHD which has been a huge part of who I am in this regard.  One of the effects of such a personality is that I tend to be very comfortable in uncomfortable situations because.  While this propensity towards pandemonium can be an asset in certain scenarios, it can also be a hindrance towards productivity.  As a result, a major part of my personal growth and sanctification has been about learning how to simultaneously take advantage of my comfortability with disorder as well as how to overcome it with some intentional scheduling and focus.

Speaking from the perspective of an ardent abstract-random thinker, to concede to the benefits of being intentional would be a shock if I were to tell this to my fifteen-year-old self.  Although, as it stands today, I have learned without a doubt that God wants us to be intentional about how we will use our time to ensure that it is being used for maximum effect and potency.

Normally, I would make a list of relavent Scripture passages to make the point but for this it might be best to simply point to the nature of creation put forth in Genesis 1.  God created all of creation to have order and He did it with great intention.  God is a good of purpose and we should take that same posture in ourselves.  We should become a people of purpose and of intentionality, who do are not tossed to and fro by the tossing waves of this corporeal life, but who determine to stay true to the paths that God has set out before us.  Therefore, let us determine to plan and to stick to our plans so as to be as effective and significant as we possibly can!

Using Time to the Fullest

Much of Holy Writ is dedicated to the task of understanding wisdom.  Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the book of Job are all explicitly devoted to the quest for wisdom.  The particulars of wisdom are examined by pitting wisdom against folly.  The onset of the search for wisdom is the fear of God (Pro. 9:10).  Reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom, and should guide every decision in every situation we may face.

Some of the most constant and challenging decisions we face is that of time usage.  Time is limited; there is only so much of it to do all of the things that need to be done.  Everyday, several times a day, we face decisions in how we will choose to devote our time.  As a result, a true test of wisdom is in how well we make use of the time we have been given because our time is so limited.  We should, then, strive to prioritize with wisdom so as to not let the time go along in uselessness.

Paul exhorts believers in Ephesians to live wisely by making the most use of the time, for the days are evil (Eph. 5:15-16).  Truly, this is the case.  For time passes whether we are aware of it or not.  And if we are not paying attention, it will be too late before we realize.  Paul echoes his exhortation in his letter to the Colossians (Col. 4:5), indicating that this is an important teaching and should not be quickly neglected.

Ultimately, godly time management and prioritization is a practice that takes effort, diligence, and discipline.  Often the trappings of the world have such a hook-like pull that distract us from the tasks we have been called to complete.  Think of all the time we've so easily spent online, in front of the television, or just sitting around doing nothing.  In the end, this should not be so.  Let us then press on in faith and obedience to make the best use of the blessed time that God has given us!

Gleaning Wisdom from and before Failure

By the second decade of the twentieth century, the automobile industry was taking off.  However, there was one potential hiccup and major hurdle to the industry's growth: rubber.  At that time, synthetic rubbers were still in their infancy and would not be able to fill the demands.  In reaction to the growing need, in 1928, Henry Ford went to Brazil and purchased over 6,200 square miles of Amazon river, beachfront property.  Fordlandia was formed.

Ford sent some of his top engineers and managers who had streamlined his revolutionary mass-production Ford facilities.  The men went down to Fordlandia and, having hired local farmers to live and work in the city, planted hundreds of perfectly symmetrical rows of rubber trees along the banks of Rio Tapajos.

However, the managers and engineers that Ford sent down to Brazil had little to no knowledge of tropical agriculture.  And, not knowing anything about growing rubber trees or tropical farming at all, Fordlandia was a continual and repeated failure.  In 1945, when Ford's grandson took the company over, Fordlandia had incurred a slew of violent local uprisings, had been unsuccessfully relocated further down the Amazon, and was finally sold for a $20 million loss.

The point is that, while Henry Ford saw a need and formed a solution to solve it, because he lacked the information and expertise to accomplish his goals it was an utter failure.  Despite the fact that Ford dumped valuable resources of money and manpower, it was all for naught.  The project failed definitively for a whole litany of reasons, but the chief among them was Ford's own pride.  Henry believed that the skills and tactics that had made him an automobile baron would be equally useful in farming rubber trees.  He was wrong.

Often times we, like Henry Ford, will be faced with issues that we, like Ford, will choose to take on by our own wit or grit.  As Solomon writes, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Pro. 16:18)."  We need to always remember that while we may have our own plans and our own ways to deal with the scenarios that we are faced with, it is in the Lord that we are established (Pro. 16:9).

Consider the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21), who because the harvest had been so fruitfully plentiful, he tore down his barn to big a larger one to store all of his surplus. Yet before he can lay the first brick, the Lord calls him out, demanding his life that very night.  The primary point of the parable is that the man who stores up riches for himself has no riches in heaven.  However, a secondary and equally important point is that we cannot know when or what God has for us if we are continually making plans apart from His guidance and separated from His presence.

James, in his epistle, picks up on this theme when he says that we do not know what tomorrow may bring for we are but mists that are here today but vanish tomorrow.  Therefore, we should say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that (James 4:13-15)."  This hits a nerve at the heart of our culture that so heralds individualism, self-expression, and personal power.  But apart from the Lord blessing are very step and sustaining us from breath to breath, there is not a single thing that we are capable of doing.  

Therefore, we should seek His will not only to bless our plans, but also to help us determine them as well, remembering that God desires to guide our steps in order that we would walk in accordance with His will (Psa. 37:23-24; Pro. 20:24; Jer. 10:23).  So that we would not walk in the footsteps of Fordlandia, we should always strive to come to God in humility so that He would guide and equip us for every work that He has already prepared for us to do.  Praise be to God who directs and blesses!