Underneath the Surface

So often we live life at surface level. We get caught up in the concerns, fears, and frustrations of daily life. Political races, tribal conflicts, the exchange rate, logistics of travel, even the fight for survival, can cause us to focus on what we see. Even as we look at 'the big picture' we often see the historical challenges that are still part of that surface level.

But if we look just a little deeper ... if we dig into the heart and soul of our people, often we see something underneath the surface that cries out "never give up". That speaks of hope and future.

Christopher Dawson, in Religion and the Rise of Western Culture, highlights for us how the Apostle Paul's experience in Europe and Asia effected such a subterranean change that the world hardly saw it coming:

When St. Paul...came to Philippi in Macedonia, he did more to change the course of history that the great battle that had decided the fate of the Roman Empire on the same spot nearly a century earlier, for he brought to Europe the seed of a new life which was ultimately destined to create a new world. All this took place underneath the surface of history, so that it was unrecognized by the leaders of contemporary culture....a new principle had been introduced into the static civilization of the Roman world that contained infinite possibilities of change. (p. 27; emphasis mine)

"Infinite possibilities of change" ... isn't that what you long for? Isn't that what you pray for? I know that is my prayer for you, for your people! Yet look how Dawson says it happened ... "underneath the surface of history" - unrecognized by the "leaders" of the day!

Fight the tendency to see things on the surface. For goodness' sake, ignore the media! How I pray that we will have God's eyes - that we will see where the "new principle" of the Gospel is taking root, bringing with it infinite possibilities of change - of turning the world upside down!

"...These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also..." (Acts 17:6)