What’s your Life Shaped Like? Part I

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Which is your life shaped more like? Is it the Christmas ornament box, or the solar system planetarium?

Choose wisely.

Now it’s time for some thoughts on our universe.

The two books theory says you can learn about God in two ways: (1) what he explicitly tells man; and (2) what He created. We can learn a lot about God by looking at the nature of the things He made.

In America, we were born as a nation of people who built. They built and innovated. They designed and built, layer upon layer. With hard work, they laid a foundation, put parameters on the foundation, and put a layer on it. Then another, and another. We looked around what we had built and structured our relationship with God, our spiritual life, the same way. Layer upon layer defines how it works.

Thus was born the priority list. God first, other work stuff second, play stuff third, etc., etc. God becomes the job, the occupation, that must be completed before you do stuff you really want to do. Make sure the bases are covered. The orientation of life becomes very linear, very boxy, very compartmentalized. Our life looks like a building, with different rooms for different functions. There is a work-out room, a kitchen for cooking and serving, a living room for gathering and wathching movies & TV, etc.

How is creation oriented? What form does it follow? Look at our galaxy. Millions and billions of stars, each with its own solar system, revolve around a center shrouded in light. A center so far away and so mysterious—we cannot touch it or hear it; only the strongest telescopes can penetrate it, and only mathematical equations can feel it. Take the atom. At the center, protons and neutrons form a nucleus around which electrons distribute themselves in a sort of cloud. Look at a tree. From the root, nutrients spring forth, and from the trunk, limbs spring out in all directions, outward and upward. Viewed from above, it forms a circle, spreading out in all directions.

The micro, the macro, and the tangible—we see three levels of God’s creation manifested in a glorious, delicately designed pattern. He’s an artist and an engineer. Functional and aesthetic in every way. God’s creation is oriented centrally, whereas man’s creation is oriented in blocks. So we see the difference between religion and relationship.

I’m not trying to change your beliefs, actually. I just want you to envision your life lived differently. What if everything did not have its own compartment, but rather, each part of your life was connected to a center at all times, drawing life and revolving around the center?

The longer I live, the more I see how much God loves me and how little He regards my plans. That’s why the shape of my life is so important. What’s the shape of yours?

 

Stay hungry, my friends. 

 

Images:

1. http://www.funlearning.co.uk/image/cache/data/night_sky/LER0018E_GeoSafari_Motorised_Solar_System_and_Planetarium_C_1-700×700.jpg

2. http://sacchef.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/christmas-ornament-storage.jpg