Wax On, Wax Off

God had a message for me today. The message is not contained in the story. It's an old story but I need you to understand it.

There was a man named Sal. He was kind, and good, and very pious. So this, very pious man heard their was going to be a huge storm and a good chance the river would jump its banks and flood the town he lived. Sal, not having a car, was concerned, but decided that God would deliver him. He lived alone, and had no loved ones to contact. Now, Sal wasn't an idiot. He took some precautions. He saw it start to rain, and realized the predictions were right. He got out his raincoat, and all sorts of supplies, and began climbing a ladder up to the roof.

His neighbor Ted, saw Sal climbing onto the roof through the torrential rain. "Sal! What are you doing, come in my van! I have room!" Sal called down, "No, it's OK! God will deliver me."

Ted, thinking Sal was a crazy man found another neighbor to take and sped off.

Ted and Sal's neighborhood was near a dam. And this was a once a century storm. And someone forgot to carry a decimal point. The dam bursts. Sal is okay, but trapped on his roof, which is beginning to recede. A man in a motorboat comes by. he begs Sal to get in but Sal waves him off, saying "God will deliver me!" The boat pilot calls the police to let them know about the crazy man.

At this point, Sal is on the peak of his roof. The police are calling from a helicopter, dangling a rope ladder. Sal will have none of it. "God will deliver me!"

Sal doesn't make it.

So Sal, VERY confused gets up to the Pearly Gates. St.Peter, seeing Sal's righteous and pious life, waves him through. Sal turns to Peter and asks,"I'm grateful to be allowed to enter, but I have to ask, why didn't God deliver me?" Peter just stares at Sal for quite a few seconds.

"Who do you think sent your neighbor, the boat and the helicopter?"

Sometimes God's messages come through mundane sources, sometimes from people trying to let God speak through them. Sometimes people try to say one thing but the message God delivers is quite different.

I spent the morning today whining to my therapist about not being able to motivate any positive changes in my life. The argument I used came down to a deep, deep fear of never seeing a payoff on effort put in. Frankly, it's a great argument for inaction, because it is self-fulfilling. But he primed the pump on doing small things without immediate payoff.

So, I'm listening to the podcast for my church (the one I've been skipping out on for like 6 weeks) and the Pastor is talking about why we should read the Bible, and he starts hammering on the point of doing things that don't have obvious payoff in the short term. My ears perk up. He then proceeds to play the "home improvement" scenes from "The Karate Kid".

I need to do the dumbb thing I gotta do. I'm not gonna see any results until some ridiculous point but I need to hit the basics and hit them hard.

Let's see how this goes.

This is the first post in my new blog. I think having a long form place to compose my thoughts will help. Man was meant to communicate in bigger than 140 character chunks.