Freshen Up Your Knowledge

We live life with the knowledge we learned decades ago. Well, only if you are as old as I am. Otherwise, your knowledge may seem like something you learned yesterday!

It seems most of the things I “know” is “old” – just ask anyone who plays Trivial Pursuit with me! I believe it’s important to continually freshen up your knowledge so you are always on the cutting edge of knowing!

Knowledge is not worthless over time

After a few decades, knowledge should be the same thing everyone else knows, with expansion into the areas that draw us based on who we are, and who we want to become! If we all operate from the same platform of learning the same things, then our common knowledge should be equal to what everyone else knows. Right?

But knowledge keeps increasing as the world around us keeps changing. You are either content with what you know, and you don’t want to know anything else. Or. If you’ve been around the block a while, then when it comes to knowledge, you begin searching for those among us who will be able to stretch our boundaries?

Read, Explore, Wonder

I read so I can expand my knowledge base, broach subjects that advancers, as well as historians, promote. From them, I learn more about where we are in the present. I explore, where we’ve come from in our past and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt we learn from those who faced life long ago. Without any doubt, someone in the future will be studying us!

I wonder where we might be headed in the future. We see the changes of today and compare them to the life of our idyllic childhood and wonder. Can it get any crazier? Weirder? How many boundaries of decency and strangeness will we push? It’s almost as if the psychedelic, draft-dodging, war rejecting, rock music roots of the ’60s are reentering the world as the weirdness deepens. Only. “The times they are a-changing!” (Bob Dylan, 1963) He could sing it today and it would reflect today as much as those times nearly 60 years ago.

Here’s Where I’m Thinking

A number of things made me think this through in the early morning hours. And not just once, but multiple times I think through this.

Recently. I poured milk from a half-gallon paper carton, I remembered when we used to only see milk in glass containers. (My bride nearly lost a finger due to one of these glass containers back before I met her!) It was weird moving to the paper cartons, and I remember gallon paper containers being difficult to open and handle. Then we migrated to plastic with multiple lessons learned to get the best plastic that can be recycled and reused. Who knows where it will go from there?

This is not a question of technology, after all, I moved in circles of keypunch cards, punched paper data strips, and vacuum tubes. I’ve seen technology that put men on the moon in the ’60s move faster than wildfire to mobile phones that have more power than most mainframes ever thought about having!

Why Do I Blog?

This morning, I write because I’m continually hungry for an expanse of knowledge that arms me for decisions, as well as meeting the satisfaction of simply knowing something new every day.

A portion of my writing comes from a tweet by my cousin and he pointed me in a new direction on understanding how some progress and others falter and fail.

Viktor Frankl, who endured the death camps of the Third Reich and authored “Mans Search For Meaning”, wrote “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’” We must know our “WHY”! ~@Galen_Go (Galen Walters)

Ask Yourself “Why”

Several months ago I started asking “why“, of my self to determine why I am doing what I do, why I believe what I believe, and can I be content to know the answers I unfold. This has nothing to do with changing my framework of life and living, rather, for too long we all operate in the circus of life without knowing “why” we are here, where we are going, and will we understand when we’ve arrived?

Cain and Job

God asked Cain after he had done his deadly deed.

And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why do you look sad and depressed and dejected? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it. (Genesis 4:6-7 AMP)

What if Cain simply paused and asked himself that important question? Why?

After more suffering than any of us could possibly understand, Job speaks out to his dilemma with a great question, “Why?”

“Why did I not die at birth?
Why did I not perish when I came from the womb? (Job 3:11 NKJV)

What we know of Job is that he asked questions but never failed to keep his focus forward to God. The asking did not change him, nor did the answers. Maybe this is key for all of us to understand. Asking questions and getting answers simply frame our world better, but it doesn’t always require is to change.

What is your Why?

From this framework of thought, I’ve spent the past few months asking this question, “What is your Why?”

• Why do you exist? What’s your goal? Where are you headed? What your life’s theme? Where do you want to end up at?
• When you reach the end can you look backward at your history and be happy with who you were at key points of living?

Way too often we are struck with a thought that comes out of the blue, or from some inner dissatisfaction, “What’s My Purpose?” “Why do I exist?”

How Do You Handle these words?

Too easily, we put the thought on a bookshelf and rocking chair (yes, this is a verb for it equals action) our way into retirement, content with who we are and not interested in looking for an answer. There are many in the following generations asking the same questions and experiment their way into what we only see as weirdness, wondering, where did we go wrong!

Someone says without a Manifesto, Worldview, Goals, Slogan, Objectives or Tribe we are lost and wandering without guidance. You cannot exist without these words activating your press into the future that may include wild success or abject tripping failures into the abyss.

What is your reason?

Long before these words became vogue, humans have had a reason for existence.

• We stand on one shore and long for what’s beyond the unknown.
• Equally, we gaze at the stars and wonder about “Space. The final frontier….”.
• Somehow we gaze deep into a flower and wonder at the molecular level that distinguishes one blossom from another.
• Then, we look over their shoulders at the past and with wonder, they stand amazed that we ever made it to this point!

This is really a question of who we are, where we’ve been, and the “when” parameters as we begin to ask the question “why”?

What have I done to prepare for the future? Some are happy to just live the life full of bubbly and acid experiences that take them to the grave. Some are not satisfied with this style of living and they want to persevere into a broader and deeper understanding of those basic questions we learned in grade school: Who, What, When, Where, Why and don’t forget the How!

Jesus knew his Why

From the garden forward his arrival fulfilled his mission to seek and to save the lost. (Luke 19:10) For those of us who believe this salvatory life and act, we then purpose ourselves to Follow Christ (Matthew 4:19) fulfilling his mission into the world of the future. (Matthew 28:19-20). We were not promised a life of ease and perfection. The sun rises and the rain falls equally on the just and the unjust. (Matthew 5:45) But we know if we live until the end the way we are called to live then there is a greater reward than we can imagine. (John 14:2)

Hence, I must know my “why”…

And sometimes the answer includes pain, suffering, disappointment, unbelievable stress, withheld rewards…as well as indescribable victories! The process of living my “why” means there are good days, as well as not so good. Laughter alongside tears. Indelible highs and lows.

Back to the tweet from my cousin. I bought the recommended book where the quote was from and have begun reading it. [Source] Within the pages is the historical story of miracles. On the same page as the reference, the author concludes:

So those who have faith in the God of the Bible can know that even if we don’t get the miracle we are praying for, we can relax and trust that God is nonetheless leading us toward something through whatever it is we are enduring. That is an absolutely extraordinary concept, but if we believe that God can perform outrageous miracles, we should also be able to believe he can do that. (Metaxas, Eric. Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life (p. 66). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Ruminating My Answers

Perhaps my “why” is what I started out my true path of believing sitting around the dining table at midnight, affirmed by the miracle that happened to me.

When I turned 16, my family gave me my first study Bible. A Zondervan New Encyclopedic Reference Edition of the Authorized King James Version. It kept me through my teenage years and into parenthood. It’s been recovered once because I wore it out! Alongside this bible are the black vinyl zippered 6-ringed notebooks I kept with notes about the preacher, his scriptures, titles, and perhaps lessons learned from sitting through hundreds of services for about 10 years.

This was and is my prized possession.

Although I have passed it on to my son and he holds it in trust in his library, it is my bible with my most favorite life-changing memories. It’s not as marked up as my more adult bibles, but it has many favorite scriptures and memories highlighted with marker and pen. It represents the growth of a teenager into adulthood and went with me everywhere. I read through it multiple times. It holds many memories of life’s lessons learned and lived.

Let me share one of them.

My sixteenth year, 1971, I was entering my final year of high school, just before I met my bride. I was constantly busy working various jobs, mowing yards, and completely involved with my favorite church and the youth choir, choir trips and singing every Sunday night.

One Sunday night after a very Spirit-filled service, I headed home in my first car (it looked something like this if it were totally complete!), and as was my habit it seemed like I was always giving others a ride home. I finally walked into a totally quiet house. Around midnight. Everyone was asleep. We had a large dining table, so I sat down in the dark with a single light over the table turned on. I began to relive and enjoy the whole day. I was busy teaching Sunday School, loved singing in the enjoying choir, and of course, experiencing a tremendous youth group. The night felt very special.

God Speaks Through His Word

As I sat at the table, I asked God to speak to me through His Word. I stood the bible up on edge, closed my eyes, let it fall open and put my finger on the page. What I read really threw me for a loop. This had never happened before. The scripture was:

“I have been young, and now am old;
yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken,
nor his seed begging bread.” (Psalms 37:25 KJV)

This was the first choir song we sang that night.

Karen Morris had the lead if my generational memory serves me correctly, and it started out slow before we moved to a faster tempo.

• Have you ever been hungry? Jesus will feed you.
  Have you ever really needed Him when He didn’t need you?
  Have you ever seen someone who was down and out,
  That Jesus just didn’t care about?
  I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken,
  Or his seed out begging for bread.

• Has ever passed you by when you needed a savior?
  Has he ever once time ignored your cry when you asked him for a favor?
  Has he ever once, turned his back on you?
  No, when you need the Lord He’ll see you through.
  I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken,
  Or his seed out begging for bread.

• Chorus: You may be down today, but help is on the way.
  Dark clouds may dim your sky,
  but He’ll answer you by and by.
  If you take one step, He’ll take two.
  Why don’t you see what the Lord will do!
  I’ve never seen the righteous forsake!
  Or his seed out begging for bread!

Quickly, I closed my bible…

Shocked by the coincidence of scripture and song… I prayed. Lord. Do it again! I held the bible up on the edge, closed my eyes, let the Bible fall open, pointed my finger at the page. When I opened my eyes, my finger pointed at the second shock of the night! It was the second choir song we sang that night!

“For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalms 30:5 KJV)

This song was led by Sam Franks. Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy, Joy, Joy, cometh in the morning!

I don’t remember all the words, nor can I find the exact lyrics, or a recording, but it was a powerful song!

But a powerful thing happened in my life that night.

God was real in my life, and I believed in His presence more than ever before. Neither of these scriptures was highlighted. The bible was new and maybe it’s only right that they fall open to the middle of the book (which was probably around the Psalms), but to have my finger land on the two scriptures that we sang from that night… Well. This confirmed God’s Word was real, and it was for me. Historically and into my future!

I realized then, and know even more now, that what I live, is what I find in the Word of God. This is my Why!

It’s not an accident that these two songs have given me the power of perseverance when life seems dark and gloomy. It was that late-night, in 1971 that my confirmation of living for God was firmly founded…

This is my Why

From an experience as old as the hills, back in 1971, God showed me His Word was real, and it can impact my life. This was not an accident! It’s my favorite thing! And if it can be so simply said, This is my Why…