a drop of water

I’ve owned both a Plantronics 510 Bluetooth headset and a Plantronics 520 Bluetooth headset.  The 510 was first critically damaged by the Peanut and then fatally wounded by the very same Peanut who also crushed my cell phone in an attempt to make a phone call.  The 510 was a great headset, comfortable, clear, good battery life.  I was hoping that the 520 would follow suit with the model line’s performance.  Unfortunately it is not as comfortable and not as clear, though lighter and has just as good battery life.

But this post is more about the Plantronics Headset One Year Warranty Service / Exchange / Replacement program.  It is excellent!  And no, Peanut did not touch the 520 :)  It’s been suffering from a worsening problem with clarity for a few months now.   Everything from information, to live help via chat, to forms are online and they had the replacement at my house 2 business days after submitting the online forms.  (They verify that the headset is within its 1 year warranty by a date code that is printed on the headset.)  The only matter of note is that the customer gets to pay the shipping to return the defective headset, which is fine, considering they send a brand new replacement. This level of customer service is rare these days.

Post inspired by Joe in his recent post over at globalyawning.

I think the distinction between seeking wisdom and seeking God must be made. I believe that in seeking God, we often seek wisdom, however it is very possible that in our quest for wisdom, we settle for the version that lacks God.  We fear God’s wisdom because of how it speaks into our choices and motivations in life and so we often settle for the version that is missing God.

Here is a quick illustration of what I mean…

I am looking into my life’s mirror. I’m wearing a new suit and a clean white shirt.  I worked hard for this suit. It symbolizes my will, my success, my reward of this world.  I earned it and now I get to wear it. Failure was not an option, and this version of success was something I could get on my own.

But then I look closer into the mirror.  In the background there are those who are dressed in ripped and dirty clothing, people who I’ve stepped on along the way.  Indirectly and directly, I’ve had a part in their situation. I never noticed them before.  I’d forgotten them.

I look further into the mirror and see Jesus and his followers, those who are Christ-like. Their clothes are worn and old. They are tired, but they are full of peace and love. What speaks even louder is their actions of helping the people around them.

I feel scared because I do not want to give up my suit. I like my suit. I earned it. I don’t want to get dirty. I’m afraid of giving it up to be more like Christ. But I’m reminded of what I am called to do, and so I take off my jacket.  I roll up my sleeves and hand my jacket to someone near me who doesn’t have one.

Joe’s recent post over at globalyawning, challenges us to use our testimonies to engage the world around us.  Our testimonies are a manifestation of that “vision of life in the kingdom of the heavens in the fellowship of Jesus” that Dallas Willard suggests is essential as we lead people to become disciples of Jesus.

Our testimonies are living.  The initial point of acknowledging Jesus as Lord of our life is just that, the beginning of our testimony, our daily learning from, walking with, and trusting of God.  The association that testimonies are limited to our initial conversion restricts us from the depth of gratefulness for that initial point that is gained in the perspective of a life giving and active relationship with God.  The more our lives our transformed into being more like Christ, the more we understand where we came from in sin without Christ.

There is often a temptation to fluff up our testimonies about God with our own ideas of what we think will least offensive or more inline with current trends and thoughts.  But there is no need for fluff.  A living testimony requires no fluff of ours because it describes the truth and reality of God’s work in us for the undeserved, grace filled expression of love that it is. This work is supernatural.  Our fluff does not do it justice.

The work in us is great primarily because of the worker, God.  The greatness of the work itself is only secondary.  Because of the magnitude and creativity of God’s power and work, each persons testimony will give a glimpse of the reality that is an omniscient, omnipresent, incomprehensible God. It is in the little bits and pieces, the glimpses of the larger reality that we experience God individually and then pass it on to inspire those whose hearts are ready in the form of our testimony.

I believe that God’s work in us, his over all design is inherently communal.  I mean to say that when we are ready to allow God’s work in us, our testimonies, our relationship with God to engage the relationships that we have with our friends and family, we will find that God’s work in us mirrors and sometimes precedes his work in the very same friends and family.  This is how we can act as the hands and feet of God.

In his book, Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard outlines three aspects of discipleship making: “we must be disciples, we must intend to make disciples, and we must know how to bring people to believe that Jesus really is the one.”  Here are some further hard hitting ideas that are inspiring.  I would like to share with you in hope of a similiar experience, though admittedly the context is partially lost.

…non-discipleship is the elephant in the church; it is not the many moral failures, financial abuses or amazing general similarity between christian and non-christians. These are only the effects of the underlying problem. The fundamental negative reality among christians believers today, is the failure to be constantly learning how to live their lives in the kingdom among us. And it is an accepted reality. The divisions of professing christans and to those for whom it is a matter of whole life devotion to God and those who maintain a consumer or client relationship to the church has now been an accepted reality for the last 1500 years…

…it must be our conscious objective, consciously implemented to bring others to the point where they are daily learning from Jesus how to live their actual lives as he would live them if he were they. That implemented intention would soon transform everything among professing Christians as we know them.  For example, much time is spent among Christians trying to smooth over hurt feelings and even deep wounds, given and received, and to get people to stop being angry, retaliatory, and forgiving.  But suppose instead we devoted our time to inspiring and enabling christians and others to be people who are not offendable and not angry, and who are forgiving as a matter of course.  Great peace, the Psalmist says, have they who love thy law, nothing trips them up.  Psalm 119:165.  To intentionally make disciples is to open the doorway for people to become like that…

…we [should] intend to make disciples and let converts happen instead of intending to make converts and let disciples happen…we are not talking about the duties of full time ministers, but the duty of a friend, a neighbor…

…you lead people to become disciples of Jesus by ravishing them with a vision of life in the kingdom of the heavens in the fellowship of Jesus. and you do this by proclaiming, manifesting and teaching the kingdom to them in the manner learned by Jesus himself.  You must change the belief system that manages their lives…

…there is an unsettling asymmetry between the Princess and the Mother.  I dare say that precisely no readers of this book ever could, in any possible scenario, take Princess Diana’s place–either her royal station, her worldwide celebrity or her magnetic grip on every nearby camera.  Leaving aside the fact that most of us are not subjects of the British Crown, you and I are simply not cut out for the job.  Princess Diana’s singular life was just that, singular.  There will be, in our lifetime an absolutely tiny number of women (or men) who will charm the cameras and manipulate the celebrity press so effectively that they  reach her level of fame.  For the rest of us to chase that kind of popularity and visibility would be both foolish and futile…

…and yet there is nothing–absolutely nothing–stopping us from taking Mother Teresa’s place.  None of the intrinsic barriers to taking up the life of a celebrity princess apply to those who might wanted to take up the life of a servant to the poor.  As I write there are hundreds of people volunteering at the Missionaries of Charity’s home for the dying in Calcutta.  Some have been there for a day or two; others have stayed for years or decades.  They obviously will not necessarily achieve Mother’s worldwide recognition, but they are living, in every material respect, the life she lived.  At the end Mother Teresa was a wizened old woman whose face bore a crease for every year of her life.  With all the plastic surgery money could buy, you or I will never look like Princess Diana in her prime–but for absolutely no cost except a life of love, we could all look like Mother Teresa.

For nearly all of us, becoming a celebrity is completely, categorically impossible.  For all of us, becoming a saint is completely, categorically possible.

pp. 218-219, Culture Making by Andy Crouch

NOTE: Andy Crouch will be speaking at EWC in San Diego on October 21st at UCSD.  RSVP online here.