Life should be about a challenge or a mission so big that it fills us with constant new energy, passion and hope. We should be hijacked by a grace quest. Do you know that song from the Musical and the Film: Man of La Mancha, The impossible dream? The lyrics (by Joe Darion), that deal with a quest, are amazing. In this song, Don Quixote explains his own quest and the reasons behind it:
The Impossible Dream
This is my quest, to follow that star …
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far …
To fight for the right, without question or pause …
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause …
And I know if I’ll only be true, to this glorious quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm,
when I’m laid to my rest …
And the world will be better for this:
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach … the unreachable star …
When we are challenged by new ideas, opinions or ways of seeing the world, we often give up current beliefs and learn new ones. Obviously, unlearning is very difficult — otherwise the world would have been a totally different place! It requires the realization that our mental models are deficient or in need of serious updating. Then we have to change or adjust them, which, in turn, implies dismantling our present world and replacing it with a new one. We now have to make sense of a confusing array of new information, impulses and objects. Through a process of continuous learning, new mental models are built inside us to make sense of our world in a fresh new way! But unlearning is critical in this regard. “If we don’t learn to deconstruct the models that shape our worlds, we may have a very difficult time in creating new ones. The old worlds will keep coming back to haunt us.” (Jerry Wind & Colin Crook, 2006. The Power of Impossible Thinking. Transform the Business of your Life and the Life of your Business, Wharton, p. 162).
In order to relearn to live a life saturated in God’s grace, we need a quest. We need a new way of doing life in a grace-based relationship with God and others that will provide ultimate purpose, direction and passion in our lives.
People who follow their life’s quest have faced their fears. They’ve conquered many of them. But, even in spite of persistent fears, they still run the good race. They continue to climb the highest mountains. They can’t stop chasing the brightest stars. If necessary, they’ll even flop their way to the top. Like Dick Fosbury, they challenge conventional ways of doing things, even if it means not doing the high jump the conventional way. In 1968 at the Mexico Olympics, Fosbury chose not to cross the bar with his body parallel to it, but to bring his legs up and flip over the bar backwards. The result of this ‘Fosbury Flop’? Well, he set a new world record for high jump at 7 ft 4 inches.
We like bidding each other prosperity. Just listen to those wishes we express for each other at new year or on someone’s birthday. Such bids are normally “safe”. They teem with words like happiness, health, and prosperity. It’s fine to express a wish that good things will happen to another person on their journey, but are these things the only good things in life? Is it in prosperity-land that your faith grows the most? Is life only about green pastures and still waters? Or isn’t the deep, dark valley of Psalm 23 maybe one of God’s favorite growth-places?
What about a daring bid today? One like those that well-known Amerikan preacher and author Erwin McManus writes so often at the beginning of his books when he introduces them: “Risk everything!” Isn’t that exactly what we need sometimes in our faith? Even further, is faith as such not a challenge, the chance of a lifetime to walk with the living God? It asks courage in the midst of disbelief, selfishness and opposition to belief in God. Like Paul writes in Romans 8, faith asks that we must carry on hoping despite all hopelessness. It asks boldness to walk on God’s heels when you’d rather be going off in your own direction.
Leonard Sweet showed us in The Gospel according to Starbucks that coffee can be used as an effective metaphor to convey the Good News of Jesus in today’s idiom. However, some people still view coffee as the devil’s beverage. Well, just in case you wondered…
Caffeine (coffee’s main active chemical) does in fact block the chemical known as adenosine, which causes drowsiness. On the other hand, your brain could become hooked on the stimulating effects of all those caffeine boosts. But then new studies show that older women who drink more than 3 cups of coffee per day have better memories than those who drink less coffee. High coffee consumption also helps against depression, because caffeine increases dopamine, that well-known “happy feeling” hormone, in
our brains. At the same time coffee has effective laxative effects. Due to roughly 0.5 grams of cellulose fibre per 100 ml in brewed coffee, it can even help fight cholesterol. But take note that heavy coffee drinking over the long term could lead to a rapid development of osteoporosis.
I have the privilege to write a small column in a daily newspaper every Monday to Friday, entitled Good News. A while ago, I told the story of Ernie in my column. May I share it again here? Good American friends of mine involved Ernie in the youth ministry of their church. Ernie stayed involved there full steam until his death in his nineties. Ernie’s work at the youth ministry was to pack the dishwasher every Wednesday evening after they served a great feast to the younger ones.
One day Ernie told my friends that he asked the Lord the previous night to rather come fetch him. At this stage he was already deaf in both ears and he could no longer bear his deep longing for his late wife. But then he suddenly thought of all the young people that he served unnoticed and wondered who would pack and unpack the dishwasher after they spent time together on Wednesdays. Right there and then Ernie chose to carry on living with a new vigor. He did exactly that untill the end of his life. Ernie knew that once the race was over, Jesus would be waiting for him with the crown of righteousness in his hand (2 Timothy 4:7-8). That’s why he couldn’t stop living or stop running before the race was over.
I’m a keen musician. No, wait maybe musician is too strong a word. I’m a keen impersonator of a musician. Anyway, it was at the piano, in a dance of black and white keys, that the thought came to me: The heart is a guitar. An instrument of beauty, inspiration and most of all love. Each with its own tone, each responding differently to touch and feel, with the capacity to make soul-music — taking us to places words alone cannot reach.
Music cannot be manufactured. It takes time and discipline. Yes, standard progressions, useful techniques and agreed-upon time signatures all exist. But you cannot prescribe one formula to create and fit all music. The mystery and the attraction of music is that two pieces of music in exactly the same key can sound worlds apart when played in different styles and with different instruments. We often falter here in trying to help others. In an effort to ‘manufacture’ and guarantee growth and life, we reduce it to ‘three easy steps’ and ‘how-to’.
People who follow their life’s quest have faced their fears. They’ve conquered many of them. But, even in spite of persistent fears, they still run the good race. They continue to climb the highest mountains. They can’t stop chasing the brightest stars. If necessary, they’ll even flop their way to the top. Like Dick Fosbury, they challenge conventional ways of doing things, even if it means not doing the high jump the conventional way. In 1968 at the Mexico Olympics, Fosbury chose not to cross the bar with his body parallel to it, but to bring his legs up and flip over the bar backwards. The result of this ‘Fosbury Flop’? Well, he set a new world record for high jump at 7 ft 4 inches.
We like bidding each other prosperity. Just listen to those wishes we express for each other at new year or on someone’s birthday. Such bids are normally “safe”. They teem with words like happiness, health, and prosperity. It’s fine to express a wish that good things will happen to another person on their journey, but are these things the only good things in life? Is it in prosperity-land that your faith grows the most? Is life only about green pastures and still waters? Or isn’t the deep, dark valley of Psalm 23 maybe one of God’s favorite growth-places?
I’m a keen musician. No, wait maybe musician is too strong a word. I’m a keen impersonator of a musician. Anyway, it was at the piano, in a dance of black and white keys, that the thought came to me: The heart is a guitar. An instrument of beauty, inspiration and most of all love. Each with its own tone, each responding differently to touch and feel, with the capacity to make soul-music — taking us to places words alone cannot reach.