Earlier this year my uncle made a comment that has stuck with me since, Dave, I could hear his character smile when he wrote it, “I hope when you’re my age you have the answers to life in your pocket and have run to the answers instead of away from the questions”. We all have question. We all hope we find the answers. Right now I have many questions but more importantly I have a few answers in my pocket. One of those answers is God is good all the time (Ps 100:5). I recently spoke with a wonderful, most alive friend from Lanc Lanc. She said she was going on another church building project in Ecuador for 3 weeks. “How can you build a church in 3 weeks”, I asked? She regaled her stories of Success and of near victory but what stood out was her continued drive for the future of the Church as a whole. What do questions and Ecuadorian churches have in common…? Answers! They have answers in common.
Right now the answers in my pocket are the only thing that matter. I think I need a few things at the moment but in reality I dont. I know I dont need them because I would have them if I did (phi 4:19). These answers arent simply opinions or beliefs but conclusions that I live by. Conclusions in this note are the things I have processed and decided are worth building the rest of my life on. For example: God loves me, I am lovable, people are worth loving, life doesn’t define God, God defines life. These are conclusions I have in my pocket.
What do I need? If God says he will supply all of my needs and I starve to death is that suggesting I didn’t need food on the basis that I didn’t get any? No. The verse suggests Gods riches that we have in Christ Jesus. Before this I would have viewed these as riches in the form of dollars. If Gods people have dollars, God has those dollars so God will provide all my needs with those dollars…? I have concluded differently now. I don’t need money, I need God to make me more me so I can be Successful for Him. Gods Success is different than our success. (note the Cap S) As long as I view my success through my perspective I will always have needs that I will potentially never get. If I view my Success through Gods perspective I will always have what I need to be Successful. We’ll look into if starving to death is ever Successful another day, it tends to open a big can of worms.
Building a church in 3 weeks and finding the answers to my Success have another thing in common, Gods perspective. If we conclude Gods plan of Success is better than our plan of success we very quickly dive head first into the ocean of results in Gods promises and answers. It looks like the unknown, its scary, its unsafe! I agree, but its the only place you will find Success.
Do you feel like you’re a fish swimming around your little bowl but for some reason its doesnt feel complete? It may be because theres no water in the bowl. It may appear that everything is going well until you get that edge of life that really makes a difference! As soon as you experience a drop of Success its incredibly life giving! The perspective you had looked good until you realised that you were on the bottom looking up only one breath from death. Most people are more fishy than we think I believe. They get some water in their nice glassy bowl and compare what they have to what they had and feel successful. God would prefer more I believe (Eph 3:20). God would prefer we ask to be in the ocean! Ive been told fish grow to their environment, I would suggest we do to. To continue the analogy, if we dont know the truth and dont conclude our answers we tend to be bottom feeders, sucking up worms and find ourselves feeding less than 5,000. But we’re going to leave that for another day.
In conclusion: Find the answers. Realise you have everything you need to be Successful. Ask to be dumped in the ocean. And finally, realise that a church can be built in only 3 weeks if you can answer a few questions on how to fill someones bowl with living water. (Jn 4:14)
Rock On!
David Snader 
Dave, well said! I’m proud of you for putting your thoughts on paper and sharing them with others! I liked your new word “bole”, which is clearly combining “hole” and “bowl”. Then again, Mark Twain said, “It is a poor soul that can only think of one way to spell a word”! I was challenged by your definition of Success. Keep on keeping on! Love Dad
ps We were reading about PNG and looking at pictures. The thought came to mind “How would a full beard look on a shrunken head?” Not good, so we felt much better!