Lessons from Kaki King.. and others....

I have been thinking about a general principle that has come into my life several times in the past few weeks. It has to do with significant. Most of the time we feel we are far more significant that we really are. I'm going to paraphrase the conversation that started this line of thought. 

I was watching TED Talks, a great set of programs if you have never heard of it. This specific TED Talk was a performance by a petite, introverted, Finger style guitarist names Kaki King (if you don't know her Google it, it will amaze you. She is the first female on Rolling Stones "Guitar God" List. I'm listening to her as I write this). She talked about her place in the universe. She first laid out the concept of time running infinitely in both directions. How every moment was insignificant within this spectrum. But if every moment was equally insignificant, then every moment was equally significant. Her final statement was "Therefore this music will be the most significant music in your life, at this moment".

This fundamental concept has  worked in the shadows of several conversations over the last few weeks. More than likely this is the product of my Reticular Activating Systems, but let's say it is more than that. We think the universe is approximately 18 Billion years old. Now like the world is flat theory of old, this may prove to be untrue, but it us our current paradigm. So our entire life passes as a moment in the history of time. Each day we spend on this earth is even less significant. Each hour, minute, and second progressively less significant.  But each unit of time is unique to us. There will only be one. If we do not use it we cannot store it for another time. What we did with it becomes part of  history, even if we did nothing. 

That makes it the most significant moment of our life, at that time. Kaki was right. So  the question is; do we live like it is the most significant moment at the time? Do we realize how truly unique each moment is?

This bring me to list written by Andy Rooney, that I cannot verify, but hey it was on the internet so it has to be true....right..... here is a sample:

1.       That I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help him in some other way.

2.       That no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with. 

3.       That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

4.       That simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.

5.       That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

6.       That everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

7.       That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.

8.       That it's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

9.       That under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.

The life lesson that come from this list is that life's little moments are important. We spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the big moments that lay ahead and very little time appreciating the little moments in front of us.

Is this the most significant moment in your life right now? What did you do with it?

Everyone needs a miracle from time to time.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

We all face times of desperate need. All of us at one time or another in our lives “need” a miracle. It might be saving our job/business depends on closing a business deal. It might be that we have a loved one with a medical emergency. But at some point we recognize that we can’t do it alone and “need” intervention. Most of us look for a “parting-the-Red Sea” type of miracle. We’re looking for that big, immediate, in-your-face solution to our problem. I know some of us can point to big “parting-the-Red Sea” miracles and I believe they exist, but for the most part I think if we critically looked at even those they would follow this process. It is just that we obeyed so naturally that we don’t see our involvement. What is the real pragmatic expectation to answered prayer? There are six points I’d like to make:

1. God knew the need before we asked for help 
2. God could have solved the problem immediately without the help of other
3. God expects us to do what we can, he expects obedience 
4. God uses resource that we have 
5.  God does what we can’t
6.  Here is the hard part, the final solution always takes longer then we want, requires obedience even when we don’t understand the required task and is more painful than we would like.

I have listed five Biblical miracles at the end to use as examples. They are just five of many, but they demonstrate the principles well. They all share the six points above. 

God knew the need before we asked for help

We are not going to surprise God with our need. Psalms 139:4 “Even before the words are on my tongue, you know it all together.” We are not bringing Him a perplexing problem that He needs to contemplate. Our problems are unique and immediate to us. Because we do not see the future, our need is for a quick solution. When we don’t get it we believe either God doesn’t know, doesn’t care or can’t help. The timing is a well thought out decision by God based on his plans for us.

God could have solved the problem immediately without the help of others

In Genesis 1 we learned that God created the heavens and the earth. There is nothing He cannot do without our intervention. Genesis 22:18 says "And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me." He wants to bless us by getting us involved. The first part of the blessing is that He wants us to work together. He wants a relationship with us. He wants us to trust and obey. He could have simply made the five thousand full. Or made the bridal party happy with what they had, or wiped out the debt of the widow. He wants us to experience the joy of working with him.

God expects us to do what we can, he expects obedience

You can’t steer a stationary ship, it requires movement. Obedience is movement. Many times we pray for a solution and wait for the answer. God will send us “nudges” as a call to action. He will not always show us an immediate result when we obey. The size of the blessing can be determined by our actions. In both the Water to Wine miracle and the Widow’s Olive Jar miracle, the size of the blessing was determined by the number of vessels the people gathered. Peter could have never walked on water if he hadn’t first gotten out of the boat. The cripple went to great effort to have his friends carry him to Jesus, lift him to the roof and dig a hole into which they could lower him. The first step is obedience. Obedience requires movement.

God uses resource that we have

This is the first miracle, we have everything we need. Generally we expect that the solution of the problem centers on the fact that we can’t get what we need, which presupposes that we don’t already have it. The cripple had friends that were willing to help. The widow had olive oil, the wedding guests had water jugs, and the 5,000 had five fish. It seldom seems like we have enough, so we overlook what we have. Whether it is money, friends, intelligence, energy, or experience, we have resources that God will use. We need to take the time to understand the resources available to us and we need to be willing to apply them even when they seem lacking.

God does what we can’t

He is where the magic happens. As the servants ladled out the water it turned to wine. As the widow poured out olive oil from her jar it kept filling jars until she was out of jars. As the five thousand took pieces of fish and bread, there kept being more fish and bread. The cripple picked up his mat and walked. You don’t really think Peter could walk on water without God’s help. This is the part of the miracle we see and expect. The blessing is a result of our obedience; we kind of forget that part. 

The Hard Part

The final solution always takes longer then we want, requires obedience even when we don’t understand the required task and is more painful than we would like. Sorry I wish I could say more, but this is it. We have expectations that if we do what God wants, he will do what we want. Sorry, it’s not a trade. He knows so much more than we do. He knows what we want and need. He can see the future implications to all actions. We have a vision of our future based on limited knowledge. He has perfect knowledge. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Test this theory by reading about these five miracles in the bible:

1. Walking on Water (Mathew 14: 22 – 33)
2. Water to Wine (John 2: 1 – 11)
3. Widow trying to save her children from indenture (2 Kings 4:1 – 7) 
4.   Feeding the five thousand (Matthew 14: 13 – 21)
5. Cripple who is passed through the roof (Luke 5: 17 – 21) “get your hands dirty digging through the roof kind of faith”

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Life is full of stress. It comes from all directions. It's anchored in uncertainty. When we are faced with a problem we don't understand, or we can't envision a solution, or we are not sure we can execute it, stress builds in our lives. Most of the time if you take the time to identify the problem both in detail and in writing, itemize the potential outcomes of the problem, select the worst possible outcome and construct a plan to mitigate it, your stress drops exponentially. You don't have to believe you can overcome the problem to feel better. You just simply need to understand the true impact. More times than not the negative fallout of a problem is not as bad as we think.

What brought me to write this was the ongoing experience of new clients who have come to believe that uncertainty and stress are part of being in business. There are so many little things they don't quite understand, so they let it ride. One client had a very large deferred revenue balance that had never been reconciled. When it was pointed out, they responded "Why should I care?" One of the biggest reasons is that the IRS is going to ask and if you don't have a very good answer they are going to start digging into your books, not just this year, but previous years as well. We had another client that had a POS device problem that understated sales by a few thousand dollars. They hadn't reconciled their bank deposits for several months and didn't catch it. The issue became; understated sales tax reporting and understated royalty payment reporting. Both of these, although easy to correct, may cause future audits. Having someone helping you get the right information to make the right decisions is critical to lowering your stress.

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