Mind-Map

I love using mind-map, it's a software we use for high level planning, architecting, project outlining and managing... you name it -you can do it. It is the best and the easiest tool I have used for laying out a big picture scenario and breaking it down to the smallest element. As I hammer my keyboards in the late hours of the night, a thought/question comes to my mind if the efforts that I put into planning project goals, tasks and investments can be mapped out why not the entire journey of our lives?.

Maybe I am taking this to an extreme, but my best guess and sure answer is life cannot be neatly planned or packaged into boxes, departments and small level objectives. To an extent in our professional and personal lives we may be able to do so, but we should remember that we live our stories as part of the grander story God is orchestrating. The story has many twists and turns and most of them are unexpected, not intended and sometimes full of pleasant or (not so pleasant) surprises. Life is a combination theatric of happy, sad, melodramatic, joyous, revelatory, mundane and routine events. I could have added a lot more adjectives but you get the point. We are called to live out our stories, engage and participate in the greatest story of revealing the glory of God in all aspects of our lives. A few weeks back Glen Packiam one of our pastors was giving a talk about 'The Advent', he was relating how the coming of Christ in scriptures prophesied Him as the child who will be responsible of the rising and falling of many. Glen brought some interesting points as he concentrated on the 'falling of many' where he picked up the history of Herod the great who in spite of knowing the signs of the age, powerful, knowledgeable and builder of many things failed to give up control and bring his devotion to the coming of the King of Kings. Herod's life story ends in a tragic death. The man who planned and protected his reign so carefully, brutally murdered children in Bethlehem , wanting to kill the new born King of Israel, his pitiful life came to a sad end. The beautiful relation Glen brought out was sometimes we know all the signs, have all the knowledge and carefully are in control of orchestrating all the events we want to shape and size in our lives...perhaps it is time to give up that control and get in the flow of surrender to the one who demands the government of our lives and then say to Him..."Command Lord and help me execute thy will on earth".

Yeshua said "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

Hard isn't it? I am still trying to wrap my head around this one :)

Blessings,

Sam Kurien