110 We Haven't Even Yet Begun

One of the biggest killers of progress and moving forward is the notion to have arrived. People who think they already know don't seek any further knowledge, their hunger to learn is stifled. They stop absorbing, soaking up the new, and so they stagnate and stop growing.

This applies to so many aspects of our lives:

We think we've already seen it all, and so we stop looking for new things, for new possibilties.

We let the TV do its job and fill our craving for new visual input, and close the door to the possibility of whole new worlds in existence that we might yet discover, would we only lay aside the remote control long enough, or the joystick or computer mouse, for that matter.

We think we've already heard it all and trust the radio and blaring noises & Satan's sirens to fill our vacuum for new audio input, and have unlearned the art of listening to our hearts and the whispers of our Maker.

We think we already know it all, and trust the institutions of education and the mass media to supply us with whatever they think we ought to "know," and have perhaps come further away from true knowledge than mankind has ever been.

We think we already give so much, when we will not be judged by how much we give, but by how much we still have left, and how much more we could have given. (Remember the lesson from "Schindler's List.")

Indeed, our self-image is an utterly deceptive one. We say, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," and know not that we are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Rev.3:17). We behave like spiritual primadonnas and "sit like a queen," convinced that we "shall see no sorrow" (Rev.18:7).

That's why Jesus said you can't fill new wine into old wine skins.

Someone special once compared faith to a vacuum of the sort that a baby creates in its mouth in order to suck the milk from its mother's breast (if you take any offense in that idea, get real, dude!).

So, what is it that hinders our growth? A lack of vacuum, a lack of desire, of yearning, of a need for more, new spiritual food.

What's causing the lack of desire? The abundant supply of junk-food we're not only being offered, but virtually flooded with from all sides.

We haven't learned the art of saying "no" to the wrong kind of voices, the wrong kind of input, the wrong kind of spiritual drugs. But before we learn that, we'll never be able to say truly "yes" to our Creator, the only One Who can truly satisfy us and fill our needs.

So, next time you feel tempted to say, "I've seen it all," or "I've heard that," or "I know all that," be still and listen to the knock and the whisper at your heart, which may tell you just the opposite: "You ain't seen nuthin' yet!"

We may feel pretty much defeated by the circumstances of life and surrender to our fate & say, "That's just the way it is," or we can say - as John Paul Jones is supposed to have said when it looked as if he was defeated - "We haven't even yet begun to fight."

We haven't even yet begun to love, to live, to give, to see, to know...

We haven't even yet begun.