A lot of care for a little tree can grow a forest.

Once upon a time this guy built a wide road. He named it Broad Way. Today, numerous cities in the US have a Broadway that is home to the best culture in our country.

The idea for Broad Way wasn’t super special. But what happened after that has made all our lives more interesting. People saw that idea and built on it.

That means whatever “common” thing you’re building today could become a significant contribution to the world tomorrow.

Continue building your vision. Most days of idea work are almost painfully common – you’re out pulling up weeds, leveling some ground, measuring the width, digging out rocks, and occasionally talking to people about your idea.

You go through times when you think, “There’s nothing special about what I’m doing. Anyone could do this.” Except “anyone” isn’t. You are. And when you finish, certain people are going to see what you did and build on it.

But before they can see it, YOU have to put in the hard yards of preparing the way. That’s why it’s called vision. You see what isn’t as though it is. And pretty soon, other people will see what it is you built and create what isn’t.

It’s part of the magic of being in the human family – turning a tree into a forest everyone can enjoy. It’s a group of people who morph Broad Way into Broadway.

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint.
_Proverbs 23:4

Cars regularly last more than 150,000 miles and give thousands of hours of service.

Compare this to a top fuel dragster (the really long drag cars). The motors in these dragsters produce nearly 8,000 horsepower and the engines are rebuilt after every single 4-second run the car makes. If they weren’t, they’d blow up (which they sometimes do) within about 5 passes. That’s approximately 1.25 miles of distance and less than 20 seconds of racing for those 5 passes.

Some of us are pushing ourselves so hard in our jobs and in life that stuff is breaking inside us. And it’s not worth it. We treat ourselves like we’re high performance dragsters capable of maximum output for 18 hours a day every day with little else but a mocha, some sad morsels of food, and a catnap we call a night of sleep.

Take it easy. We each have certain capabilities and they’re different from other peoples’. Don’t force yourself to match someone else’s output. You’re you. They’re them. Don’t push yourself to the brink of breakdown.

If we don’t rebuild ourselves every day with meaningful recreation and rest and relationships, we’ll flame out. If we ever hope to love our neighbors better, we MUST start by loving ourselves better.

There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.
_Ecclesiastes 1:11

For hundreds and thousands of years, generations of human beings have walked on and left this earth. It’s probably fair to say 99.9999% of them are completely forgotten. Many of us don’t know the names of our great-grandparents, much less the story of their lives. We’ve forgotten our own families less than 40 years after they’ve died.

But we can’t say they might as well have never lived.

Collectively, every previous generation, has brought us to the place we are today. Their thinking and toiling and parenting have made the world what it is now. We have them to thank for what is around us. If we only knew who they were! So the question for us may not be “how will you be remembered?” Because, in all likelihood, we won’t be. The question is: how will we be felt?  When a 24-year old in the year 2093 marvels at the world around him on a Saturday night at 1am, it will be because of us. And he won’t know who to thank either.

Life is short. But there’s plenty of time to build our lives and this world into something that’ll blow that kid away. Everyone wants to live in a kingdom of good. That’s where our hands should be busy.

When we’re young, we ask a million questions – often starting with something specific (“What is that rock called?”), working out to things more general (“How are rocks formed?”) to the ultimate (“Where did the universe come from?”) All this happens in about 5 minutes. At some point parents realize their kid isn’t capable of understanding the ultimate things – no matter how well it’s explained.

Adult Questions
How did the movie theater door get propped open? Why were assault rifles sold to a madman? Where was God in Aurora? Our questions move from the specific to the general to the ultimate.

Where is God when our own life falls apart? Like a toddler, we ask questions about the world as we know it but too infrequently about the world outside. Earlier this week on Twitter, someone wrote this:

[We think we're unique]…as if [this issue of 'why'] was only a relevant question in white, American suburbs. Where is God in Afghanistan? Where is God in Gaza? Where is God in Syria? Where is God, indeed?

We don’t get where he is sometimes. He seems to be gone or not to care. A billion people in deep suffering because of poverty? Some of them starve to death. Blame satan. Blame rich people. Blame apathy. Blame sin. Blame the rain. But at the end of the day, if God is all-powerful, he could stop it, but he doesn’t. That’s sad. Period. For all the good suffering can do, it too often ends in unredeemed, crushing, final disappointment (at least as far as a human can tell).

Little kids want to know where babies come from. They’re not ready to hear. Maybe we’re not either. Maybe we’re really toddlers in God’s eyes and we can’t understand these things just yet.

Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
_Job 38:35

We barely know how to tie our shoes.