“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 1611)
Growing Dominion, Part 8
In order to exercise wisdom in the world, we have to come to grips with the fact that wisdom is counter-intuitive. If you have ever taken any kind of lessons, whether driving lessons, piano lessons, golf lessons, guitar lessons, or “whatever else” lessons, your instructor invariably communicated to you the fact that what you felt like doing was not what you ought in fact to be doing. The novice holds the guitar wrong, holds the golf club wrong, and so on. The instructor patiently explains to you the right way of doing it, a way which initially feels awkward and all wrong.
The same is true if we step back and look at the overall tasks and calling given to us by God. Jesus says that the way up is the way down, and that the one who wants to be first must become the servant of all. This is counter-intuitive–how can the way down be the way up? How can humbling be the way of advancement? Why would the farmer think the way to get a crop would be to bury his seed in the ground? What an idiot.
But that is the way it goes. As we seek to work in the world in such a way as to have God bless the work of our hands, we must understand this principle. As we are establishing the work of dominion, many of the initial things that God would have us do will seem like impediments or setbacks. But they are not. And many quick-fixes and shortcuts will seem like techniques that the worldly wise would commend. But they are not.