The Fine Art of Insight

Vast knowledge of Bible facts won't make anyone more insightful

- Charles R. Swindoll in Hand Me Another Brick.

My friend Charles Middlebrooks gave me Swindoll's book in 1996. Cathy, Austen, Bear and I were moving back to Austin. We weren't sure about a lot of things, including where to live, job stabililty  and little insight. A travel trailer at the South Austin KOA ended up being our home for 21 months.

Insight increased during this time. 15 years later, a lot of living and I don't have the fine art part down, but it's a clearer picture. Paul Martinelli on the subject of will (God's vs mine), says, "the more time I spend with God, the time I invest with Him, the more I recognize His voice, His will." Yes, absolutely.

The more time I invest with Him....That's getting into the fine art Swindoll's talking about, the reinstruction of the people he labels the last seven chapters of the "Book of Nehemiah." What happens when we invest time with Him? Insight, and we become reconstructed.

Insight.....is it attainable? I believe it is, and in abundance. Having good insight can take time and more than a little extra pause, prayer and pondering will help. Taking time to remove the clutter (another Martinelli lesson) helps me to be more creative (what God wants...us to expand His creation, to dig...and clutter stops that digging like a limestone in the Texas Hill Country).

Reinstruction...how much? As much as it takes. There are some days where I wake up and think.."ug...I didn't go to Heaven. Now I have to do this all over again!" But every so often, and they're happening more and more, I seem to get-it. That restful feeling describe in Hebrews. That's powerful and I know the reconstruction is working from the inside-out....I'm learning to use what's "in-the-box" first.

Swindol ends his insight chapter, The Fine Art of Insight, with

...insightful leadership is attainable..but no one has a corner on the virtue. It is available to all who are willing to pay the price. Insight not lonly gives you good perspective on the past and the ability to face the future with confidence and vision, it will also give you an honest appraisal of yourself...

To that end...have a great Sunday

Ponderings on "Why Work?" - Number 3

Biblical theology is practical to its core and it is heretical to promote, 

as theological institutions have for decades, unapplied theology.

- R. Paul Stevens

Ms. Sayers' 1st proposition: stated quite briefly, is that work is not, primarily a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker's faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.

The author then offers consequences of her point, one being the "question of profits and remuneration." Personally, her 3 paragraphs containing 350 or so words are boiled into the following...

...the mere fact that a man will put loving labor into some hobby which can never bring him any economically adequate return. His satisfaction comes, in the godlike manner, from looking upon what he has made and finding it very good. He is no longer bargaining with his work, but serving it.

I don't care who you are...and we can, and will, debate other factors concerning wages and profits, but that statement is good. Really good.. With our hobby, what we love to just DO, we are serving that work. And work is good.

Our culture has taken a turn, it always does.....take turns, and isn't just fashionable that many are on paths of "finding our passion," "finding the life we love," "exploring our emotions," etc, etc. To seek what we want to be when we grow up....no matter what our age, has become important.

"His satisfaction comes, in the godlike manner, from looking upon what he has made and finding it very good." Setting with a group of businessmen this week, my friend Dale Miller, co-owner of Austin Fine Floors, asked the question

"if you could do any job you wanted, what would it be?" 

I was very surprised that 6 of the 7 men answered "what I'm doing. The job I have."

Pondering the answers the past 3 days, and in light of Sayers 1st proposition, the follow-up question should have been

"what if you weren't paid any money, would it still be the job you wanted? If not, what job, what work, would you do"

If money was out of the picture, would I work? What work would that be?

To that end....