Perspective and insight on life and living can be like a tree growing within you. The tree is the connectedness that you see between God and the Bible and the world and people -- there's a lot of branches and limbs and leaves, but it's still all one tree. As the tree grows you become curious and fascinated as you see God working in all the branches. As a result you become more interested in people and how God is working in them. and you find yourself in conversations almost subconcsiously sharing this growing insight and perspective. And the cool thing is, your influence in this has nothing to do with who you're with or where you are or what you do.
But you have to take responsibility for your own growth and influence. It doesn't just happen. Like watering, weeding, pruning and care-taking, there are some things important to the growth. Here's a few, without numbers 'cause that seems too much like steps, and then we'll look more at each one later:
Take responsibility for yourself. For your study, for your lifestyle of observation and influence.
Know the Bible. Getting to know it can be an ongoing lifestyle. What does it say, what does it mean, and how does it all fit together? You don't have to go to school -- you do have to work at it.
Soak up the Bible's attitude, approach, demeanor, patterns, principles. It's not just doctrines and teachings. God shows how he thinks and sees -- you can think and see more that way, too.
Look at the world and people -- notice the same thing you did with the Bible: events, and patterns, and how people think, and how the world works. You'll notice this in the Bible, too. You'll begin to see it's not a million disconnected things.
Now take these growing insights into the Bible, people, and the world and begin to merge them. This doesn't happen overnight, it's a result of making it a lifestyle of observing and thinking. When you look at the world, you'll begin to see God; when you look at God, you'll begin to see the world.
This is the beginning of seeing not only the individual pieces, but how those pieces are related, and how that relates to you and those you meet. Some people call it wisdom. It's the beginning of seeing what things mean. It's the beginning of becoming way more useful to people, your family and your church.
What's the saying? If you want to make straw, you can do it in a few weeks. If you're growing an oak, it will take years. Well, there's an oak inside you, and the years are going to go by anyway.
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