Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Where art thou?

I'm told, in the world of business, one word means everything; location, location, location. (I realize that's actually 3 words, but the importance is driven home by the repetition.) This reminds me of a Bible story with which most are familiar. Adam and Eve, the progenitors of our race, had just committed the first sin. In Genesis 3:9 God "called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou?" He who knows all from the beginning through the end knew the answer bef0re He even asked, what He wanted to know was what Adam would come up with for an answer. It was a position or location of morality, not one of longitude and latitude. The same question can be asked of each of us today; "Where art thou?"

To stay in one place, city, town, country, "location" all your life, is not necessarily a sin. I know people from my home town who were born and raised, never left and are very happy and successful there. However, to stay in one place, always looking over the horizon of possibilites only to complain about what we don't have and what's better "over yonder" and believing we're chained to a stake in the here and now is just wrong. I've heard domesticated elephants in a circus are chained at a very young age to a stake driven deep into the ground. Try as they might with all their strength, while they're young, they can't break free from that chain and location. Only after the trainer feels they have resigned themselves to a life of servitude, will he unchain the elephant and let him have his freedom. The thing is, the elephant will, generally, not go much farther than the length of the chain, in distance without being prodded along. This is why you'll see grown elephants rocking back and forth in a slow rythmic movement. As brilliant as these animals are, they've been brain washed, as children into thinking they're still chained to the stake and are trying to pull free from the imaginary shackle around their feet. Know any people like that?

In comparison to Adam and Eve's situationand I guess the really important question here is, are we stagnating in a place that once seemed "perfect" for the time, or making every effort to move onward and upward out of the quagmire of repetitiveness?

Moving forward a few thousand years to the book of St. John 11:43, Jesus calls Lazarus, his friend, from the grave. "Lazarus, come forth." You have to go back and read a few verses before this to hear Jesus ask the location of his dearly departed friend, "Where have ye laid him?" Where did you last see him, he asks his sisters? Where was the last point of contact you had with him? What was his last position? Too many times we allow ourselves to believe that something in our life is dead and gone and is now only fit for the burial tombs, cemetaries and grave yards of deceased dreams, when in fact God is waiting on us to "come forth" just as Lazarus did, taking part in a ressurection of the mind and body. He knew where Lazarus was, both physically and spiritually. He knew that Lazarus would live again, even though the doubts, and mourning wails of family and friends were still fresh.

The main point is that when Jesus came on location, even death could not prevent the inevitable from taking place. Lazarus had partaken in the result of the fall of Adam and Eve, but he was not bound to that one location and postition because he chose to answer the Master's voice and come forth. I've heard it said that Jesus had to call Lazarus from the grave, by name, lest all the other dead would come forth at that moment. It was enough to believe that Jesus raised Lazarus, but try explaining an entire cemetary coming back to life to the town council...

The final point is that relationship with God is the all important factor. The friendships you make and entertain will either propel you to greatness, or they'll weigh you down like a ship's anchor. Where ever you are on your journey, the location is not important. It's where you're headed that makes all the difference in the world, both in this and the next.

I think I need to go move my truck. The tires are getting flat on the bottom from just "sittin' in one place too long..."