Day 312 - Formula Foundation

Thoughts that have come from various quotes taken from the book, "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim Based Society" by John H. Hovis. Click here to link directly to the audio file.

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"No, formulas in and of themselves aren’t bad, it’s what we do with formulas that get us into trouble where victor living is concerned."

As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 219.

Graham Greene, noted author, playwright and journalist, says this about formulas. "Beware of formulas. If there's a God, he's not a God of formulas."

A formula, in the scientific world, is an axiom that has been proven to be true in all known cases. For example, the formula for distance traveled is speed multiplied by the time traveled. In other words, if you travel for one hour at sixty miles per hour you will have covered 60 miles of distance. This formula has been proven to work in any language, with any form of measurement and in any environment known to man.

I might be kind of weird but formulas, like the one I described before, bring me great comfort. There is something incredibly satisfying by the absolutes this formula represents. Problem is that I want that same feeling when it comes to the things that impact me personally. I want formulas for my relationships. I want formulas for my health. I want formulas for my finances. I want formulas for how to relate to my God.

I have come to a place where I couldn't agree with Mr. Greene more. God is NOT a god of formulas. I'm becoming more and more use to this truth the older I get. I believe God isn't a god of formulas because formulas give God's Children a false hope. It is when allow ourselves to develop methods of reacting to life based on our personal understanding of who we are and who we are suppose to be, that God gets very worried for His precious children. 

God isn't worried that we won't need Him if we can come up with the right formula for life. God knows that there is nothing in this life that will give us what He wants us to have. Our choosing to relying on failed and incomplete patterns of existence does nothing but hurt us in ways I think breaks His heart.

God is not a god of formulas because formulas tend to take us to places where our pain causes others pain as well. It is when we find our well worn formulas don't work for us, like they may have in the past, that victim thinking sets in in ways that threaten to make victims of those around us. No, God isn't a god of formulas. For that reason, we shouldn't be bowing down in worship to the formulas we have created to try and make more sense of this life of ours.

If I were to be intellectually honest with myself for a moment, I would see that formulas are the easy way out in this life. What I really want are methods of dealing with situations that don't require me to work so hard. If I lose a job, a fool-proof formula would take so much of the pressure off my needing to get creative in finding a new way of supporting myself. If my health takes a turn for the worse, a tried and true formula with proven results makes it so much easier to deal with the pain that can come with the unknown of illnesses.

Formulas are really the lazy alternative to the challenges this life throws at us. Reality is that formulas just don't work in life's circumstances as completely as the distance formula I explained earlier. That fact scares me a times. My fear comes from the fact that, when formulas don't work, the control I desperately want for my life is so hard to find, let alone maintain. This is especially the case when challenges come my way.

I use formulas to give me a strong place from which to stand. God wants me to look to Him for that firm foundation. Formulas get in the way of me seeing Him clearly. When formulas don't work, I am tempted to question whether God is there for me or not.

Take a look at today's Bible reading with me now.

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." Matthew 7:24-27 (ESV)

I have felt the greatness of the fall described in the last line of today's reading. It was when the basic formulas I had trusted for decades didn't work any longer that, that fall almost killed me. I had built my house (my life) on the sandy soil of world driven ways of making life work the way I needed it to. When the storms came, the fall was almost too much to recover from.

Good news is that God is NOT a god of formulas! I have been learning how to use formulas like they were intended. These marvelous ways of acting and reacting are not to be my foundation. They are to be tools to build what God has intended all along. This life of mine is a construction project that needed to be revamped in a way so as to be able to weather the storms that will come from time to tome. It is when the victim thinker sees that their best efforts at controlling who this world sees them to be just don't work that victor living starts to happen.

What are formulas doing in your life today? If they are there as the foundation for all you do and all you say, hang on! That's not a foundation that can be trusted. What God says about you is really all the formula you need when it comes to who you are. He calls you His Child. That makes you all the victor you will ever need to make this world be all it is suppose to be in your life today.