Pastor’s Corner: Macro living within micro decisions

There is a wonderful balance of living our lives to the fullest today and living a preparatory life centered on seeing the bigger pictures. In my opinion, the greatest gift that God has given man is the gift of choice.

As the great gift is our savior Jesus, the most precious and authentic deliverable of love is when we choose to love. God does not make us love him. He gives us the opportunity to choose our love for Jesus.

Are you familiar with the poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” originally published in 1865? The six blind men kept safe in their village debated a myriad of things in life. But one of their big disputes was about elephants. Presented with the opportunity by an old friend to gain a better understanding of what an elephant is, they positioned themselves around a large elephant.

Each described the elephant from their perspective. One blind man touching its side described the elephant as a great wall. Another touching the elephant’s trunk pronounced that the elephant is like a giant snake. Still another blind man touching one of the four legs of the elephant exclaimed that it was an extremely large cow!

While touching the tusk of the elephant, one of the men said the elephant is as sharp and deadly as a spear! Another man touching the tail of the great animal exclaimed, “We are being fooled, this is just a big rope!” The last blind man, examining the elephant’s huge ear, described the elephant as a huge fan or a magic carpet.

The moral of John Godfrey Saxe’s (1816-1887) poem paints the picture of how we tend to determine life based on a limited, micro-perspective as we discount a larger macro-view of life. If we only live life in the moment, or in a limited view, we may lose all that God has in store for us. Conversely, if we live in fear of the macro of what things may happen in life going forward, we can miss the “smelling the flowers” opportunities that life in the micro can present us.

There are people who even read the Bible in the macro, or from the big picture of point A and point Z and all the things to come. A macro reader can see signs of the times but miss the intimate micro moments with a savior who knows our every need.

Are you only a macro-liver? Do not miss the moments in the micro of life that give us vitality and substance.

Proverbs 6:6-9 – “Go to the ant, you lazy person; observe its ways and grow wise. The ant has no commander, officer or ruler. Even so, it gets its food in summer, gathers its provisions at harvest. How long, lazy person, will you lie down? When will you rise from your sleep? According to this scripture, the macro living of an ant must give us a view of how the picture should be a part of our everyday living.”

Are you someone who lives in the micro? We must see that big picture of life and make plans of sustainability for life going forward.

Matthew 7:24 – “Everybody who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise builder who built a house on bedrock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against that house. It didn’t fall because it was firmly set on bedrock. But everybody who hears these words of mine and doesn’t put them into practice will be like a fool who built a house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came and the wind blew and beat against that house. It fell and was completely destroyed.” (NIV Bible)

The wise master builder Jesus expresses a micro/macro perspective in following his words of life and direction. The micro decisions of building the house on the rock creates positive macro benefits. When the storms of life assail, there is functional sustainability because of the choices in the moment of where to build the house. In contrast, using resources to build without foresight will bring a destructive and deadly outcome.

The word of God is full of life-giving anecdotes for today and tomorrow.

Our perspective determines the next moves in our lives, not just in the micro but also in the macro. In every area of life, God’s encouragement to you is to balance your life with micro decisions for positive macro-outcomes.

• Michael F. Cole is the pastor at the Worship Center and Dixon Church of the Brethren.