Dot People

I had lunch with Mike Hale today. I love that man. I love his family. Mike asked me how I was doing and so I let him have it as raw as it is. In the last few days I have been thinking about how God interacts with us. I saw an active God in the Old Testament but a passive God in the New Testament. I saw examples of how God rescued those laboring in His service in the Old Testament like S,M&A in the fiery furnace and Daniel in the lion’s den. I saw God who did not intervene in the New Testament when Stephen was stoned, when John was beheaded, when Paul was tortured and then killed. I saw a God who spoke plainly to his prophets in the Old Testament but one who allowed the Spirit to loosely council the writers in the New Testament. Right, wrong, or indifferent that was how I felt and I came to a realization… is this a God I want to serve?

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Before I got into computers I was in sales. I went to a handful of conferences on how to be a better salesman and at one particular seminar (I think it was John Hopkins) I was impressed with this exercise (don’t ask me to remember how this relates to sales).

Take a blank sheet of white paper and take a pen or pencil and make a dot somewhere on the page. What do you see? Show it to your spouse, friends, kids, and ask them all the same question. Unless they have seen this before I am willing to bet that they say, “I see a little dot.”

They all miss the rest of the page.

Yes, there is a little dot but there is also a lot of white space left on that page.

I think it is an exercise in optimism.

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I read today that UNICEF reports that in 1960 it was not uncommon in 3rd world countries to have 3 out of ever 10 infants die and that in one country, Mali, it was 5 out of every 10. In 2002, while there was improvement, they report that it was not uncommon for those same countries to suffer 1 in 10 infant mortalities and even up to almost 3 in 10 in some locations.

In some countries 3 out of every 10 children die before the age of 1 year… even today.

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Everything I have has been given to me by God. I have beautiful children, a loving wife, a secure job, a far more than adequate home and an AMAZING church family. There are BILLIONS of people who cannot say the same. Just because I have been sheltered doesn’t mean that tragedy doesn’t exist today. I was looking at the dot. My 15 month old son is dead and that is a pretty big dot but in the context of the page of eternity, it is not even a spec. Carter is where I am going and I shall see him again. That too is a blessing that not everyone will enjoy.

Our God is a God worth serving. In a BIG way! I am SO blessed.

I choose not to be a dot person.

What about you?