Beliefs, Threats, Changes and Blessings

Beliefs, Threats, Changes and Blessings

Recently, I attended a three-day strategic planning session for the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools.  The commission, under the initiative of the Director of Schools and The School Board, seeks to chart a course for success within our system by 2014.  Hopefully, we will pursue a myriad set of action plans, with the requisite commitment, to reverse negative statistics relative to our inner city schools.  Nevertheless, the coordinator from The Cambridge Group shared some rather insightful thoughts about beliefs, threats and change.  Because these concepts possess spiritual values and even have biblical bases, I offer my paraphrase and summary of them for your consideration.

Beliefs express deep and abiding convictions.  Beliefs are principles that you will not compromise.  As moral imperatives, beliefs do not contain escape clauses.  Beliefs are absolutes.  Accordingly, you would use absolute words in the statement of your beliefs.  State a principle about which you will not negotiate.  In so doing, avoid coordinating clauses and commas.  Beliefs are not platitudes (sound bites and wimpy words), facts, education specific or prescriptions for solutions.  Again, beliefs are moral fundamentals.

Interestingly, beliefs are proven by behavior.  The only way to determine the worth of what you believe is by the way that you act.  Practically speaking, beliefs give you a personal plumb line which keeps you straight.  Grounded in your ideals, beliefs seek perfection.  A belief statement is the only part of a strategic plan that must be understood immediately by all people.  Similarly, people should be able to determine immediately that we believe in the redemptive and salvific work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ by our behavior.

We live in a postmodern world that posits that the only absolute is that there are no absolutes.  “Truth” is relative to the experiential and ideological lenses of the person speaking, writing or expostulating.  This fallacy heightens the necessity that we stand firmly upon orthodox and biblical principles in our determination of the “Truth,” whom we confess is the Person of our Risen Lord and Savior. 

With regard to threats, the coordinator posits that threats choose us; we do not choose them.  By definition, a threat is any factor or force that is contrary to who we are.  As a result, threats contradict our core beliefs.  Therefore, threats possess the capacity to debilitate, defeat and destroy us.

As believers in the unerring providence and infinite wisdom of Almighty God, we consider threats as a part of God’s overarching plan to conform us to the character of Christ.  Disasters do not exist for us.  The immortal verse, Romans 8:28, assures us that God mysteriously and majestically uses all of the circumstances of our lives to accomplish His purposes.  Ironically, God embeds within every threat its own resolution.  Mostly, we face the challenge of genuinely relying upon the unfailing love, unquestionable faithfulness and unending grace of Almighty God in the midst of adversity.

Next, the coordinator spoke about two levels of change.  “Level One Change” happens when you attempt modifications within your current operating system.  You use the same paradigm with the erroneous hope of achieving different results.  “Level Two Change” occurs when you completely alter your reality and replace your petrified paradigm.

Fascinatingly, the Hebrew word, blessing, is the clearest explanation of “Level Two Change.”  Blessing is the combination of time and timing (circumstances).  A blessing is something that is uniquely ours at that time.  Usually, God graciously chooses to orchestrate the minute details and sequences of our lives to share His favor with us. 

Moreover, achieving the fruit of “Level Two Change” requires the spiritual application of imagination (Ephesians 3:20).  You can’t think that way that you were brought up and develop a plan for the future.  Utilizing intuition, spiritually speaking, we think in terms of discernment, we reconfigure our priorities, purposes and plans.  See what you can be!  If you can’t see what you can be, then no else can.  Paint a word picture of your life.  Envision the future.  Grasp the specification of detail, physical and aesthetic qualities.