A limited story

28 March 2001

Late this week I may go over and make an offer on the property that I have been talking to you about these last few weeks. I have tentatively decided to call this facility the Little Dalles Enterprise Center. This of course is because it is located at the landmark on the upper Columbia River known as the Little Dalles. At least it was until Grand Coulee Dam was built and in order to make the water flow better at this point of the river, the US Government did its best to blow it to pieces. The enterprise of course relates to the Enterprise Symbiosis series we did last year.

One of the questions I get when talking about this move,in various ways generally goes something like, “Why do you what to go over there and what are you going to do?” Well my truthful response is that I believe God wants me to move, and do what He wants me to do when I get there. It really is that simple, no visions written in the sky or any of that. It will require between $400,000 and $500,000 to pull it off, and He (God) has seen to it in the last few months that I will not be able to do it at all in my own financial strength, so I suppose I am right where the Bible says I am supposed to be. Now most people who ask, really do not want to hear God stuff, so we start talking about some of the stuff that we hope to do, and when they get tired of listening, the topic changes and we move on.

But listening to the radio last week, I happened upon someone telling a story that was sort of interesting from this whole enterprise perspective, so I thought I would share it with you to help you readers, get a better idea for yourselves on why I would like to undertake this move to some place so remote. It relates to God getting our attention (i.e., we are not God) and when outside of our normal circumstances, we humans, can more easily see that we are saved by grace alone to a blessed eternal future, and some are not saved at all. This story was told in natural form and as a consequence, it has some important religious overtones, that seem to be the common values of all men, and also much of the church today. It is a nice moral story, about how to live your life, but it does lack the God dimension, that should be present in all stories of God’s workings with his chosen people.

There was this college professor that brought this large jar into class filled with stones. The professor ask the class, “Is this jar full?” To which most of the class answered, “Yes.”

The professor then took out a cup of pea gravel and poured it into the jar and shook it up and the pea gravel filled the spaces between the large stones. Then the professor again ask the class, “Is this jar full?” This time the students were not all quite so sure, and some answered, “Yes.” Others, not wanting to risk failure replied. “Only you know sir.”

At this point the professor took out a cup of sand and again poured it into the jar and shook it up and the sand filled in the spaces between the large stones and the pea gravel. So the jar was again full, but not overflowing. The professor again ask the question “Is the jar full?” This time most of the students answered. “Only you know for sure all wise professor!”

At which point the professor explained his analogy. “The jar is your life, the large stones are the really important things in your life, your family, your health, your faith, and things like that. The pea gravel is the other things, which most people also consider important. Like your job, where you live, your friends, the things you really like to do, and similar opportunities. The sand is all the other stuff, all the unimportant junk that fills up the jar of our lives so that we most of the time loose the focus on the important stuff. Everyone’s life has enough really important things, so that there is no reason to fill your life’s jar with any extra pea gravel, and definitely no reason to fill all the remaining space with sand.

Now that was a nice story to hear on a secular radio station. It is also a good little story you might hear in any number of sermons in church. To live the successful Christian life, we must focus on the truly important things, and not get bogged down in all the sand that is just there to fill up the jar. But that focus is really an Old Testament, law based blessing. Sift out the sand and the pea gravel, and your life will be blessed. That is true as far as it goes.

But once the story was finished and the announcers went on to other important things, I was left with the thought. “Is that all there is?” Not to life, but to the story. No wonder the world is falling apart, Me being the unusual person that I am, I ask, “Why just stop with the sand?” Even though the jar was filled with pebbles, pea gravel and sand, the jar still was not full. You could probably get a cup of cement powder to fill in between the sand grains, and then you could add a cup of water and you could make concrete. Life as an integrated whole block. Why live a life that can be sifted and washed away, when with a little cement and a little water, the whole thing would stick together and harden into a stone that can have a real use. Thinking about it, you could break the jar, and life would still go on instead of everything just running out on the ground like so much dirt.

Patting myself on the back, for making a good story even better, I got to thinking about the nature of God, specifically some of the rock and stone passages, just to name a few: “Behold I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation,” (Isaiah 28:16b,1 Peter 2:6), “The stone which the builders rejected, Has become the chief cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22, Matthew 21:42, Luke 20:17, 1 Peter 2:7); “Listen to Me, you who follow after righteousness, You who seek the LORD; Look to the rock from which you were hewn, And the hole of the pit from which you were dug.” (Isaiah 55:1).

So you see, the best I can come up with is a concrete jar shaped paper weight. But God is doing something much better for those who truly seek the sanctification that God provides for them by Jesus on the Cross of Calvary. We are in the process of being converted, not into cement blocks or bricks, the best man can come up with, but into true stones in the image of Christ himself. God has provided us a life of no more sand and gravel, or man made building materials. That makes all my wise story provisions, amusingly simplistic. We as Christian believers are being sanctified into the image of Christ, the rock of our salvation (at least 11 Bible passages).

So how is that taking place? Well, looking beyond the sand and gravel and the old covenant with God and the nation of Israel with Moses as the mediator, we see the better promise in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18:

But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because the glory that excels. For if what was passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.

Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech--unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

So if this is the completed eternal story for God’s children, why do we continue to seek to live a life in which there is nothing but a limited story of pebbles, pea gravel, and sand, or even a solid block of concrete? We all would rather live this limited life, than move beyond our temporal horizons of our own making. In Jesus Christ we do have the opportunity to live the solid rock life we long for, and were created to enjoy. Let us all strive to allow Him to do that in each of us. All glory to God.

Seeds for Prayer

As I mentioned, I am going over to see about buying a place that I know that naturally is impossible for me to purchase. To help empower followers of Jesus Christ who are no longer content living their lives as jars of alluvial deposits from the floods of life in this world. But I have seen over these last few months the incredible grace that comes to those who are not living in their own power to accomplish their dreams. I guess it is a dream of mine to be able to pass on what I have learned over a number of years, so that others may learn from my mistakes and not have to repeat them for themselves.