Thursday, September 29, 2011

MQ = IQ

Business and management gurus tell us that a person’s ability to think metaphorically is as important as intelligence quotients; hence my title, MQ = IQ.
I think that sails beyond the business world and is exquisitely true for all of life. Metaphor is defined as a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse” is a simple metaphor. It begs the listener to expand their knowledge base without undue or extreme literal explanation.

The Bible is rich with metaphoric delights. The person who says that every word is intended to be taken with a wooden and literal eye is unwittingly draining the Book of its potential awe and power. Even “Thou shalt not murder” grows when the Holy Spirit is allowed the breath of Jesus who says, “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty…whoever says, ‘you fool’ shall be guilty…”. Suddenly murder becomes a subject of inventory for every single one of us whose resentment, dishonor and unkindness lives unchecked neatly tucked away in our hearts.

Cognitive researchers whose life is spent in thinking about how people think (how’d you like to live with one of these folks?) tell us that as the world grows more complex “imaginative rationality” has become ever more valuable. Metaphorically speaking in a tired cliché that’s called, “thinking outside the box”.

The Apostle Paul said it this way, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of His inheritance in the saints”. We are on the brink of a spiritual renaissance, or as Kris Vallotton calls it, “the eve of construction”.

Literalists have the world blowing up while others of us have the earth being consumed in the passions of an outrageous God whose Throne is encircled by a rainbow and surrounded by a leadership team saturated with eyeballs beyond count and bodies carried about by six wings.

Which reminds me; God told Noah that every time He looked at a rainbow He would be reminded to spare creation. As if to underscore this notion, God filled His own Great Room with a round rainbow. Metaphor or not, that’s just cool.

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Wake Up!

I’ve noticed when I hear, “They need to wake up!” or the twin saying,
“They need a wake up call!” the clear suggestion is that someone else needs an alarm clock blast. Oh, and here’s the best one, “This nation needs a wake up call!” Seldom is it said, “I need a wake up call!”

Ephesians 3:14, “For this reason it says, ‘Awake, sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’”

The definition for “awake” in this passage is of particular interest to me. It means to collect one’s faculties, to waken. To rouse from sleep, sitting or lying, disease and death, obscurity, inactivity, ruins, non-existence. To awake, lift up raise and rear up, to stand and take up.

My definition is this: change your patterns. Shake up your standard procedures. Get out of your predictable thinking and force yourself into emotional, intellectual and spiritual fresh air.

A few days ago I downloaded a bargain book to my Kindle, “Poke the Box” by Seth Godin. The basic premise is about a researcher who built a simple buzzer box and put it in front of a one year old child. The box had 2 buttons, a buzzer and light. Push one button and the light comes on, push the other button and the box buzzes. Left in front of a child long enough and the little tike will learn to “poke the box” for the reward of sound and light. The sub title of this bargain book is, “When was the last time you did something for the first time?” I’m officially on the lookout for things to do for the first time.

America wakes up when I wake up. Others will wake up if I wake up, if for no other reason but to keep an eye on me to make sure I’m not about to disturb their snoozey lifestyle.

Revival does not come when we pray for the nation to be revived. Revival comes when I draw a circle, jump in the middle of it, throw everyone else out of that circle and I pray for the one person in the circle …ME… to be revived. In fact, I would say it this way; the whole world is waiting for me to WAKE UP!