Not of the world: Re-claiming biblical truth

 “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.  But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness…” – 2 Timothy 2:15-16 (NASB)

Yesterday I was at dinner with my wife and daughter.  It was a dinner like many others.  This particular night we were at a fabulous barbecue house – Prairie House - on the main-street of our little town of 7,800 people.  This main street is known for its food so you can find me there regularly.  During the course of our conversation, the wife says to me “it’s like what you say, ‘you can’t turn a horse into…something faster’”.  I corrected her, “no honey it’s ‘you can’t turn a mule into a racehorse’”.  This was a common phrase amongst my business round-table back in California when we wanted to point out that a person isn’t going to change no matter how much training, encouragement, incentive to do so; there are just some limits to people you aren’t going to break through.

So last night after dinner it began to hit me that if my wife is starting to repeat my little phrases, then my work-life has spilled so far into my personal that she is starting to mimic me.  If that was the case then the folks at work certainly have heard it enough.  So I began to ask myself, “do the word-pictures and idioms I use make a larger impact as a whole other than being a useful tool to illustrate my thoughts in a succinct manner?”.  Is a Smurfs butt blue? (Our activity after dinner. Guess who picked the movie.)

Enter the idea of the micro-culture.  This is the environment directly around you that you influence and impact.  This is your daily environments: home, work, activities and hobbies.  In these places you encounter other life-forms who themselves have micro-cultures that intersect with yours at the places you meet.  In these places you are actively communicating, and by doing so you are participating in your own and each other’s micro-cultures.  These cultures are constantly changing, like the stock market in Wall Street (hopefully with better results than of late).  The main currencies of your micro-culture are your words and deeds.  Those are products of your thoughts.  So as your culture collides with others you are symbiotically changing each other’s micro-cultures and thereby creating a larger culture around you.  Now words and deeds are hugely important.  You shape your life around conversation.  You pick your friends, girlfriend or boyfriend, and even spouse based on multiple instances of conversations and micro-culture collusion.  So the question is…how have you impacted it? 

What I realized last night when my wife started repeating my phrases is that I have spent a good amount of time amassing a dictionary full of idioms and word-pictures so that when the time arises I will be well equipped to serve up a witty quip to give direction and at the same time sound wise.  If you were a fly on the wall in my office, here are some of the phrases you may hear on a regular basis:

It’s the same cupcake different frosting

You can't turn a mule into a race horse

Shuffling deck chairs on the titanic

Buying a Ferrari with a VW engine

Champagne taste with a coke budget

Squeezing water from a rock

Where there's smoke there's fire

Shooting a BB gun at a freight train

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, don't call it an alligator

It’s like trying to stick an elephant through a garden hose

Trying to find a needle in a haystack

Telling time instead of building the clock

You eat an elephant one bite at a time

Killing an ant with an anvil

It's like making a diamond out of coal...pressure and time

The 3 things of project management: quality, cost, time

Like in golf, if you don't have a target, you're just practicing

Empty barrels make the most noise

Different gears on the same bicycle

In my profession, like many others, knowledge and information are important to "stay relevant".  Often this leads to a desire to sound knowledgeable and appeal wise to those around us. 

In my case this behavior manifests itself in quick quips and word-pictures.  While these can be useful devices for quick explanations, but in some way I am furthering man-centered knowledge not God-centered, thus creating a micro-culture around me that does not profess God’s truth but someone else’s. 

Consequently, if as Christians we aren't working to navigate our micro-cultures toward Christ by speaking truth we are fools that spout folly and ultimately rob God of his glory which was the first sin of man.