One Thing

"There is more difference between 1 and 2 than there is between 2 and 10,000."  Elton Trueblood

I heard that in a sermon this week and as the preacher explained what he thought the Quaker philosopher Trueblood meant by that statement, my mind went in a different direction than his explanation.  Now I know all you engineers and math majors are going to say that statement makes no sense at all, but remember I am talking theology where Father (1) + Son (1) + Holy Spirit (1) = 1.

So what did my mind go to after the preacher quoted Trueblood?  It went to the story I had read earlier that a large, extremely rare 122.52 carat blue diamond sold for $27.6 million.  Stay with me here.  How does that relate to the statement above?

If you took that diamond and cut it into two, it would immediately loose its value of $27.6 million.  Oh each piece would be very valuable but probably not a total of over $27,000,000.  If you took the two pieces and cut them up until there were 10,000 each piece would be costly but not what that single, whole, huge diamond would be worth.  When something that precious is divided just once, that one divide makes a huge difference.  Perhaps that is not even what Elton Trueblood was trying to say but that is where my mind went.  A whole precious thing is worth more than many different pieces but that one splitting into two is where the biggest difference is and the the greatest loss.

What then is the cost of going from being single-minded to double minded?  From having an undivided heart and having a divided one?  How much is it worth to be single minded?  To have an undivided heart?  Again, we are talking theology where the numbers don't always work in ways we can quantify, but it is very valuable.

The Psalmist writes in Ps. 86:11, "Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name."  In Ezekiel 11 God tells the prophet in verse 19, "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them;  I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh."  In both those places a whole, undivided heart sounds like it is something worth more than diamonds.

This Sunday we will look at where Paul talks about, "this one thing I do..."  He had found the worth of his life given whole and undivided to God.  He found great value in that, far above diamonds.  We can find it too.

for the journey...

Tim