It’s a story I heard a long time ago, but I can’t verify that it actually happened. But a preacher told it, so it must be true. The Smithsonian Institute conducted an experiment to see if a cork, suspended by fishing wire, could move a steel beam, suspended by a giant cable. The small cork was rigged to something that made it hit the steel beam over and over again. Time after time the cork hit the beam, and nothing happened. After many hours, however, the beam began to move. First, ever-so-slightly. Then more and more, until the beam was swinging wildly. The lesson? The persistence – the consistency – of the cork moved a seemingly immovable object.
This is about my New Year’s resolution. Singular. More on that in a minute. But first, a few other things to weave together.
I just read about Suzan-Lori Parks, the Pulitzer-winning playwright who set the audacious goal of writing 365 plays in 365 days. She pulled it off between November 13, 2006 and November 12 of last year. Now The 365 International Festival is gathering participating theaters to actually produce plays throughout the year in keeping with the play cycle.
Wow. And I’ve just wanted to finish writing a book or something.
Then I got an email from a missionary who said that her goal for the coming year is to read 10 chapters of Scripture a day.
Wow squared. Heck, wow cubed!
What’s interesting is that most years, that’s how I think. What kind of mondo-magical feat of wowness can I produce this year? How can I, as Casey would say, “keep my feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars” this year?
But this year has been different. For whatever reason, the logjam of dream-bigness that I consume has pretty much washed over me lately. Some of it is circumstantial – stresses and distractions, etc. But some of has all the markings of the hand of God. I’ve been sensing a call to simplify and focus.
Two pieces of encouragement helped. Talking about personal Bible study, my friend Todd Thompson wrote recently, “In 2008 why not consider going deep with 1 book instead of wide with 66?” What a novel idea. Drilling deep instead of blowing through. He suggests spending the year in the book of Ephesians as an example. Read the whole column here for some great ideas on refreshing your time with God.
In the second piece, Ed Litton described being ambushed by grief this Christmas. But amid the scorching pain of his first Christmas without Tammy, he describes how God manifested Himself:
He has spoken in firm and frightening clarity, but this time He answered me by sitting with me and letting me know He was there. He brushed away my grief and covered my sulking frame in His peace. He eased the pain of my soul. He did what answers could not, God came near.
Okay, back to the experiment. Most years, most days, I’m like the big bad beam. I seek to do, well, beamly things. Build big structures. Support massive weights. Span great distances. But this year I’ve experienced a quiet call from God as He “came near.”
Be the cork.
Put in Bible language, learn to find God, not in the earthquake, the wind, or the storm, but in the still, quiet voice (1 Kings 19:9-14).
Put in Smithsonian language, as it were, keep it simple but consistent. Pray simply. Consistently. Daily. Ask. Seek. Knock. Do it again. Move myself to pray. Let God take care of moving the beams in my life.
So my resolution this year is to do one thing. Every single day, I will lift up my soul to the Lord. I will praise Him by gazing into His character deeply and thoughtfully. I’ll confess to Him the parts I see in me that don’t look like what I’ve been gazing at in Him. And I’ll mention in prayer the people I had contact with the day before. Tomorrow I’ll do it all over again. Sometimes it will take 5 minutes. Sometimes more than an hour. But the power will be in the consistency.
Who knows? Maybe if I can be that spiritually consistent, I’ll finally finish that book.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
hope I’m not wearing out my welcome with comments yet, but this was one awesome blog! i was just journaling myself about how i want to change the way i pray. i want to burrow deeply into the presence of God and not just talk to Him, but rest in Him. i want to sit so much in His presence that i hear the still, small voice. i want to saturate myself in prayer and the Bible so much that i begin to look like Daddy. each day, a little more … until i am a cork that has moved steel beams and revolutionized my life and my world for my God.
One of the things I’ve learned in the process about prayer, and specifically praise, is, To praise is to gaze. So much of my worship and praise has been a flurry of activity, with a glance at God. But when I truly focus at length on His character, and realize that whatever He is, He always is, even today, it can revolutionize the way I look at a particular situation. OR the way I look at me.
Thanks for sharing, Lisa.