A Little Thing Causes a Big Disaster
The flight plans were set (a fictional story). Leave from Sao Paulo at a certain time. Arrive at New York 6 hours later. All the controls in the plane seem to be working fine. Except no one noticed the compass was off by one degree. Six hours later the controls were saying the plane should be above the New York landscape but the plane was above water. What happened? One small degree set a flight path hundreds of miles away from its intended destination. Something small can lead us far away. A little thing caused big consequences.
Our lesson has a story with a similar premise. Let us read it,
A young man purchased a pleasure boat with a nice little motor and trailer. The unit appeared clean and satisfactory, and—being purchased secondhand—it was not too expensive. Eager to try out his new acquisition, he took some friends and rode out to the public slip and launched the boat. It ran well, and the group made their way to a small island off the mainland in Lake Ontario.
Beaching the little boat, they explored the island and returned to the boat to head home. A short distance out, a splashing sound alerted them to the fact that they were taking on water. Quickly, the boat capsized, dumping the three friends into the chilly waters. A most fortunate rescue forestalled serious repercussions. What had happened? A single rotted timber was found in the base of the hull that, with the wave action on the beach, had led to a split in the wood. Just one bad piece, out of all the others, was enough to overturn the boat.
The excellent Golf player Tiger Woods recently had a huge scandal of marital infidelity and sexual promiscuity. When asked why he did it, he said the he thought that after all these years of a self-sacrificed and disciplined life he was entitled to enjoy a little indiscretion. One little indiscretion has led to dozens of alleged indiscretions. Tiger Woods has fallen from grace and like him many others. The cases of unethical behavior prompted a prominent business owner to approach a leadership "Guru" and ask him to write a book on business ethics. The "Guru" laughed and told him there is no such thing as business ethics. The Business owner looked puzzled. So, the Guru explained what he meant, "Ethics is something you either have or you don't. You have it in all things or you do not have it at all."
All these men and women who have violated the trust given to them have at least one thing in common. They had access to abundance. Ellen White speaks of this,
"Our danger is not from scarcity, but from abundance. We are constantly tempted to excess. Those who would preserve their powers unimpaired for the service of God, must observe strict temperance in the use of His bounties, as well as total abstinence from every injurious or debasing indulgence."—Ellen G. White, Counsels on Diet and Foods, p. 29.
We always want more. Many of us grow to believe we are entitled to it. But, how can we stop this? How can we be standards of integrity and ethical behavior? How can we stop something small in our lives to cause a big disaster?
The Bible says that there is only one way to do this. Ephesians 3:14-21 gives us the answer,
Ephesians 3:14-21
14For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
18May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
20Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
21Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
So much is promised us in these texts. If we allow Him, the Holy Spirit can strengthen us from within; that is, He can change us, not like some cosmetic surgery but more like heart surgery, something working deep within us. And this change comes to us by faith, by knowing the reality of God's love for us. The Lord seeks a complete transformation in our lives; He desires that we be "filled with all the fulness of God." Notice, too, that unlike many self-help and New Age philosophies, Paul is not talking about our tapping into some innate power found within us. No, the power that "works in us" is the power of God, who can do more, "exceeding abundantly above" than all we ask or think. The question is are we allowing Him to, or are we letting our carnal natures rule instead?
So the Holy Spirit strengthens us with the power of God. Paul says in Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." This power of God that saves us and renews our mind into the likeness of Christ – our model of integrity – is the Gospel. What is the Gospel? It is the good news of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We have new life in Christ. When we by faith continually accept this, the Holy Spirit then turns our corrupt hearts into hearts of integrity.
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Raul Diaz
www.wolfsoath.com
