On bubbles and idols

According to Wikipedia, an economic bubble is "trade in an asset at a price or price range that strongly exceeds the asset's intrinsic value. It could also be described as a situation in which asset prices appear to be based on implausible or inconsistent views about the future."

Assets have real value but we can imagine they're more valuable than they actually are. And we can misread an asset's future stability. The same is true of other things in life. Popularity, relationships, possessions, comfort, health, career—all of these can become idols. They have real value to us but we can overstate that value. And every one of them is fragile.

Asset bubbles burst and idols topple. If we depend on them for our happiness and security our world will crumble right along with them. Be cautious—always on guard.

Except for one place.

I have learned—and am still learning—that I can pour everything into my relationship with Jesus, unconcerned that my commitments will ever approach His true worth. He is infinitely valuable and eternally dependable. The full weight of my life is secure in Him.

Straight paths

“As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’.””

— John the Baptizer in Luke 3:4 ESV

In my prayers I claim the promise in Proverbs 3 that if I acknowledge God in all my ways, he will make my paths straight. Do I give equal attention to the prophetic command in Isaiah 40, repeated by John the Baptizer, to make Jesus' paths straight?

Let me not—even unintentionally—be like Elymas in Acts 13, placing obstacles in Jesus' path. Instead let me be the one who builds a straight highway for him—who levels hill and vale, and smooths the rough places. Let me be one who removes obstacles and distractions, not the one who sets them in place.

The generalist-specialist

There's a saying:

A specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing. A generalist is someone who knows less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything.

But God knows everything about everything. Nothing is hidden from him. Nothing in the universe. Nothing in the atom. Every detail of every detail, he knows its composition, its function, and its relationship to every other thing. In fact he actively sustains and interacts with all things all the time.