In 1916, Alfonso Ovando, a Guatemalan peasant, was exploring the jungle in the Yucatan Peninsula, collecting sap from which chewing gum is made, when he came across the ruins of an ancient city. Six years later he encountered an archaeologist, Sylvanus Morley of the Carnegie Institution, and told him about the lost city. Morley began an investigation of the site, which he named Naachtun; he was the first of many archaeologists to visit the site over the next several years. Naachtun was an ancient Mayan city that flourished for several hundred years during the Classical Period (about 250-900 C.E.), before it was abandoned, seemingly at the height of its political power. The prophet Isaiah was given a message to deliver to a people whom God said would not listen. They would ignore the prophet's message, and ignore the rising tide of devastation around them, until it was too late. Then all that would remain would be cities lying waste without inhabitants, houses without people, and an utterly desolate land. Those of us who live in the industrialized world are in danger of just such a fate. We use petroleum products at a rate that suggests that we think the world's oil supplies are infinite, though we know they aren't. We enact policies in the Middle East, where most of the oil is, that are designed to maintain our control over the oil supply but are doomed to fail, because we alienate the people who live there. Our machines emit greenhouse gases that are melting the polar ice caps and raising average worldwide temperatures. We are destroying the rainforests, and we're driving species of plants and animals to extinction at a clip that far exceeds the normal "background rate." In short, we are living in a dangerous world, made more dangerous by our greed and shortsightedness. Do we hear the voice of today's Isaiahs, calling us to repent and turn back to God? Will we heed the words of people like President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who call for the creation of an "Axis of Good" to fight poverty? Will we listen to the pleas of Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Queen Noor, Coretta Scott King, Muhammad Ali, and many others to work toward complete nuclear disarmament? Or will we continue on our merry way, polluting the environment, wreaking havoc in economically depressed countries, and ignoring the future implications of today's actions? Unless we want New York, Los Angeles, and London to become tomorrow's Naachtun, we must listen to today's prophets--or become prophets ourselves.
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When children are in elementary school, their teachers fairly quickly determine those that seem to have high academic potential. They are put in higher reading groups or given extra "enrichment" courses, and their future teachers are almost always aware of their potential on the first day of class, because they have read the annotations of the gifted children's previous teachers. Those children who are slower than average, on the other hand, have a difficult time in the classroom. Teachers are usually kind to them, but they don't have the time to spend with each one individually to explain the subjects in which they are behind. They have difficulty passing the standardized tests, so their chances of advancement are minimal. What will become of them? I recently watched the movie Forrest Gump again, and Forrest was an individual who lived up to his full potential, and then some. Although he was clearly below average intelligence, he managed to make the most of every situation he encountered. By the end of the movie, when Forrest had reached middle age, he had made a fortune, earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, achieved fame in various arenas, and most importantly, made a positive difference in the lives of innumerable people. As the psalmist thanks God for God's steadfast love and faithfulness, he says the following: "The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me." Everybody's life has purpose, from the most gifted to the least. Children have dreams and ambitions. Sometimes they fulfill them, and sometimes they don't. As adults, we have dreams, too. However, as we pursue our dreams, we need to ask ourselves, "What is God's purpose for my life?" Sometimes we fulfill God's purpose in our lives by achieving our dreams, but other times we fulfill God's purpose despite our dreams. Goals are good, but they must be adjusted as we move through our lives and we understand more about God's will for our lives. Fulfilling personal ambitions while failing to do the things that God has in mind for us would be to fall short of our potential. Like Forrest Gump, we sometimes just stumble into situations that can be a tremendous blessing to us, or in which we can be a blessing to others. If we pay attention and are sensitive to God's direction, we can claim along with the psalmist the promise that God will fulfill his purpose for our lives.
On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig stood before the fans at Yankee Stadium and proclaimed, "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." He had been diagnosed two weeks earlier with the disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known in the U.S. as Lou Gehrig's Disease, yet he was optimistic. He had had a stellar career--playing in 2130 straight games, a lifetime batting average of .340, and a lifetime slugging percentage of .632--yet he was humble. The way he played baseball made him a marvel. The way he faced death made him an inspiration. When Paul wrote the letter to the Corinthian church that we call 1 Corinthians, he had plenty of reasons to boast. He had successfully carried the gospel into Europe. He had started numerous churches. He had become known as the Apostle to the Gentiles. Yet he remained humble. Rather than glorying in the revelation of Jesus to him on the Damascus road, he merely said, "Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." Paul had the qualifications to claim great things about himself, but instead he remembered his past mistakes: "I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called as apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." Though few of us can identify with Paul's successes, all of us can remember many times when we've failed God. It's a human tendency to want to magnify our successes and minimize our failures, and from a psychological standpoint, emphasizing the positive is not bad. However, we sometimes want to claim that our achievements were greater than they actually were. We like the attention, the acclaim, the adulation. At times like those, when we find ourselves focusing too much on our own accomplishments, it's good to remember Paul's attribution of his success to God: "By the grace of God I am what I am." False humility is no better than bragging, and Paul avoided both. He recognized that he had some accomplishments that were praiseworthy, but he also knew that he couldn't take the credit for his successes. His miraculous conversion and his incredible ministry had been made possible only by the grace of God. Are you above average in intelligence, athleticism, or skill? Then thank God for blessing you, and pray for guidance to live up to your potential. Perhaps academics isn't your strong suit, or maybe you're not a good public speaker. Still thank God for God's blessings. Whether we have the natural ability of Lou Gehrig or of Forrest Gump, we can accomplish whatever God leads us to do. And after we achieve great things, remember to give God the credit. "By the grace of God I am what I am." That would make a good bumper sticker!
A man wanted to start a new company, so he began poring over resume after resume. He selected ten people with great qualifications, hired them, and put them to work. He could tell pretty quickly, however, that his company wasn't going to succeed. Two of the people he hired were always arguing about the right way to market their product. Three others spent all their time devising strategies but had no idea how to implement their plans. The others bickered with one another over product placement, accounting techniques, and goals and objectives. The man fired all of his employees and decided to start over. This time he looked for qualified people who could work together as a team. This time his business prospered. When Jesus began recruiting disciples, he looked in rather unlikely places. Instead of in the synagogues, he looked in boats along the seashore. Instead of in the inner court of the temple, he recruited from the tax collector's booth in the outer courtyard. Instead of in the cultural center of Judaism, the city of Jerusalem, he looked in the backwoods province of Galilee, derided as "Galilee of the Gentiles" by many of his contemporaries. The ragtag group of fisherman, tax collectors, political zealots, and others became a team of committed followers. Sure, they were skeptical at first. No one leaves a reliable job to pursue the poorly defined scheme of a wild-eyed madman. But they soon learned that Jesus was more than he seemed at the outset. He spoke about forgiveness and acceptance to tax collectors, he answered the questions of skeptics, and he directed fisherman so that they could make a great catch of fish. Having won them over, he promised them greater accomplishments. When we encounter Jesus in our own lives, maybe we sometimes wonder why we were chosen. Surely there are others who could do the job better than I can. Certainly there are more persuasive speakers or better athletes or smarter people! But Jesus didn't look for followers among the socially elite, because his ministry was primarily among the common people. Jesus' success as a recruiter is exemplified by the fact that today, two thousand years later, the spiritual descendants of those twelve have grown into a huge multitude, two billion strong by some counts.