Now, what’s missing?

You know the equation.

You have some numbers or some bits of information… now what?

How do “we” figure out what is missing?

In math it is called “How to extrapolate a number.”

I recently received my “Cheese Maker License” from the State of Wisconsin, after taking a cheesemakers test.

[Only the farm kid in the group earned a higher score than I did, and the state tester said, “I haven’t seen scores that high in years”… nice!]

And on that test were different math problems we use to determine the amount of fat; cheese yields; and whey byproduct; that each vat of milk will produce.

The test had equations we had to solve for each category… but each equation had missing information.

You had to “extrapolate” the missing numbers.

For example…

For Total Cheese Solids

% Total Solids= 100% – % Moisture

“If a vat of whole milk cheese has 38% moisture what is the percent total solids?

100 – 38% = 62%

And by using basic, addition, multiplication, subtraction & division… you can find any number in the equation that you need to complete the equation as a whole.

I did ok on the math section… better than anticipated actually.

Oh by the way, have I ever told you, “I suck at math!”

Took the long way round again to get to here… “Now, what’s missing?”

Look at this “equation.”

Found in 1 Peter Ch. 5, verses 6-7

⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

God… and His Word… and more precisely… Jesus dying on the cross… are all encompassing!

Nothing has been left out of the equation… except for… our personal understanding and application of that Word.

Look at verse 7.

“Cast ALL your anxiety on Him…”

ALL… pretty much covers it.

But what do we have to extrapolate? If anything.

Being the “selfish creatures” that we are, we don’t believe that verse 7 covers “MY” anxieties.

Of course it covers “YOUR” anxiety concerning your current job search, but it doesn’t cover “MY” anxiety that I have because of my poor relationship with my dad.

Then… as we do the work to grow and understand, we may concede that, “Yes, I can lay the anxiety of my relationship with my dad on Jesus, but not the anxiety I suffer caused by being sexually abused at the age of 7. That anxiety is “special”.”

No Dave. No it’s not.

It’s just “anxiety,” with the word “anxiety” being used like the phrase, “and the flowers of the field.”

“Flowers of the field,” covers everything from Sun Flowers and Irises to violets, daisies, lilacs and Tiger Lilies. And anything else that “flowers.”

Jesus uses the term “anxieties” as an “umbrella term” so that we have no excuse not to come to Him with those “stresses and cares of the world.”

But if we don’t have the “peace” that Jesus offers us, to apply to ourselves, we get stuck in the flesh and deep in the “rut of selfishness, and self absorption.”

And we cry out, “Why me, why me, this anxiety is so different than anything anybody has ever had to deal with before it’s just too much, nothing can fix this… nothing!”

“Now, what’s missing?”

When we do that we are not applying the rest of the equation to our hearts.

What is the whole equation?

“We were bought at a price,” and Jesus paid that price, in blood, on the cross, FOR US, so that we could have access to not only the “equation that saves the soul,” but also the very mathematician who developed the equation in the first place!!!

Talk about having all the information you will ever need.

But just like in my test to become a cheese maker, where I missed the mark on some of the math questions, even though they were all solved by extrapolation, all of my worldly problems can be solved with the equation that Jesus has provided, and just like the repetitions I used in the practice test, it will be the repetition of daily application of Gods truths to our lives that will give us the familiarity with the equation of Christ that will grow us… not only in those Godly truths but also in the lies of the world.

If “necessity is the mother of invention”, “repetitions” are the father of application, understanding, and growth.

On our Emerging Man journey we need to take opportunities to “test and see” where we are at… with Jesus, with our family, with our surroundings and most importantly with our selfish selves.

It’s a simple test really, can you apply verse 6 to yourself?

When was the last time you “humbled yourself?”

And entered yourself into the equation.

The Emerging Man… writing to…

ENCOURAGE, EQUIP & ENGAGE

[first with myself and then with you]