April 29, 2013
Climbing the Ladder of Success
In today’s society we
feel that we step up and down the ladder of success by our own volition and we
are seldom prepared for the fact that someone may come along and knock the
ladder out from under us. Recently I saw a friend’s career came to an abrupt
end, not because he was fired or demoted, but his job was simply eliminated. He
then had to make a decision of whether to take the offer of a lesser position
in the same company, to retire, or to seek employment elsewhere. For the
believer, reevaluating and reinventing a career path has the added dimension of
the Lord’s oversight. We know that God always has our best interest at heart,
but sometimes our idea of what is best may not pass His scrutiny. “All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but
motives are weighed by the LORD. Commit to the LORD whatever you
do, and your plans will succeed.” (Proverbs 16:2-3 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----At one point in time or another, every child will hold a short fascination for toilet-paper and gift wrap tubes, ball point pen casings, little iron pipes, and anything else somewhat long, easily maneuverable, and sporting a hole through which to peer. Watch carefully; you’ll even see adults do it! I’ve never surveyed folks about their motivations for peering through toilet-paper tubes, but mine are to freshly experience the ambiance of something familiar freed of its normal surroundings. I know; this boy who wouldn’t join in kid’s games while growing up now reflects upon looking through toilet-paper tubes.
-----But in as much as anything gazed at through a tube delivers a subtely different sensation, there is the slightest experience of a most useful concept: scope. And other scopes which do it even better, like telescopes, microscopes, binoculars, and magnifying glasses. They alter the scope of your visual perception, which alters the scope of your mind, be it however momentary. We can also concentrate upon a particular sound, focus upon a particular thought, or attend a particular meaning of a particular word of a set of synonyms. All these uses, and more, of scope make intelligence work.
-----Intelligence is brought to faith where there has been revelation but not experience (as this statement is seen through the toilet-paper tube, anyway.) Experience may never come in this lifetime. But then, this lifetime is itself merely a peering through the tube, a peering which we can not sensually escape. But then, sensation is also a scope limitation. Intelligence removes the tube from the mind - reason, that is, not as a philosopher would have it, but as God has lovingly thought it. Where experience is available, we need neither revelation nor faith (respecting the scope of the statement.) But the breadth of everything which might effect the key component of any situation, either directly or indirectly, either within ourselves or surrounding us, is enormous. Therefore, revelation is vital, and faith with it. But where both revelation and experience abandon us, faith and reason must venture forth.
-----To focus upon one set of skills is a scope limitation. If the utility for your particular skill set has been scrubbed from the market, unemployment has mostly happened to you, yet more importantly, it has been partially stepped into by you. But if you worked to maintain another skill set or two, and a few social links to get you through a different door, you might not land flat when your job is yanked. Intelligence is not so much knowing the intimate depths of another skill set, it is knowing its basics with faith to acquire further instruction. It is sort of a “childlikeness” which can grow any tail lopped off. God’s revelation says we are all partially guilty in whatever happens to us, if for no other reason than by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is not to injure us with guilt, but to give our minds impetus for assembling more volition within any situation, rather than for spinning excuses unto further dependency.
-----Now, I certainly do proclaim mankind’s and every individual’s inescapable dependence upon our Holy Lord God. That thought introduced is another toilet-paper tube removed. But having peered a moment through it, we might now see God expecting our competent reasoning to be a sort of first commitment to doing something with our dependence upon Him, something corollary to it, and useful.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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