Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Planet Why

Planet Why... a strange globe on which I don’t spend near enough time. I'm too busy spending my waking hours walking the more common worlds:

Planet What
Planet Who
Planet Where
Planet When
and my personal favorite...or at least the one I spend the most time on...
Planet How

But every now and then (when the stars align?) I find myself on Planet Why doing what (apparently you can do What on Why … I don’t know How…) you’re supposed to do on that specific sphere – asking “Why?”

Today it was an email from a dear brother who took the time to find out the “Why” of a particular event at our church. I had sent a couple of emails to the church that included all the other niceties of the cosmos that is the church calendar – What, Who, Where, When & How, but had neglected to include anything that pertained to the all powerful Planet Why. (Maybe I spaced out!) I thanked him genuinely for probing the purpose of my plans, for in doing so I had to ask “Why” we were doing the event in the first place. Now in this particular instance I clearly knew the “Why” and even more important – it made sense. However, I had failed (fairly miserably I might add) to cast the vision of that purpose to those I was trying to inspire to participate.

Immediately after I had I read and replied to (Thanks again BR) his email I opened another email from a leadership website with a link to this blog that contained the following quote:

“Momentum is fed by vision. It takes more than a solution. Solutions may meet a temporary need. Vision is what constantly supplies the fuel of going from where you are to where God wants you to be.”

Vision is the “Why”!!!

Is God trying to tell me something?

I believe He is.

Now if I could just figure out why…

4 comments:

Val said...

I may hang out a little too much on Planet Why. I always wonder why and when I don't know, I speculate.

Dangerous.

I guess the most important thing, though, is to keep from getting too wrapped up in the "why" in God's realm and rather to just accept, to just abide. SCC nailed it in "God is God." It is probably the song that best encapsules my theology. Anyway one line that speaks to "why:"

"Sometimes I have to say the words I fear the most: 'I just don't know.'"

Amy C said...

Bailey is my "whyer!" It can drive me crazy. All day long, she asks me why for everything I say. That is how she learns best. She doesn't wan't to know how you do math, she wants to know why. She is the best kind of learner, but the one who is pushed aside because why is inconvenient and takes time and thought!

It is so easy to go through life answering or doing who, what, when, where, how?, but when the rubber meet the road, if the why isn't Jesus, we have wasted our time!

Anonymous said...

Hey Joel...I ran across your blog!!! How crazy it that. It was good to know you are doing well. Anyway, take care.

Anonymous said...

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