Ensign: The Law Of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS                       21 April 2017


Yes, the title is a little long today. So is this devotion, but stay with me.


Call today's title a ten-dollar phrase for the butterfly effect. For the uninitiated in our audience today, that's the idea first proposed in the early 1960s that a butterfly (hence the name) can flap its wings and set molecules of air in motion that in turn set other molecules of air in motion and in turn set other ... you get the idea. Eventually, so much air is moving that a hurricane is started on the other side of the world. When first proposed, this got laughed out of the scientific conference.


How can something so small make such a big difference?


But several decades later, the butterfly effect which had been dismissed as a bad joke and relegated to science fiction and comic books (I recall one particular movie with the tagline "Change one thing. Change everything." with the butterfly effect as its central premise) was concluded by physics professors worldwide as something authentic, accurate, and viable. Wednesday some weeks ago, I picked up a book that elaborated on this from a scientific standpoint and a personal one.


I've always been fond of Joshua Chamberlain.


I knew him as the Union colonel who commanded the troops when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, I knew he'd served as governor of Maine after the Civil War, but I did not recall that he fought at Gettysburg. Andy Andrews' The Butterfly Effect: Everything You Do Matters (ISBN 97815953094377) refers to Chamberlain commanding a Union force and falling against the Confederates not once, not twice, but ultimately SIX times.


And every time with fewer and fewer men.


But Chamberlain's men ultimately held the line and ultimately overcame their Confederate counterparts, and this even is what historians agree led to the Union victory at Gettysburg, the decisive battle of the war. In terms of personnel, for the Union could replenish its losses and the Confederacy couldn't; me, I argue Vicksburg is more decisive from a geographic standpoint because it split the Confederacy in two. But I digress.


There are other examples given in the book, but the point is that one person in the right place at the right time, even when it doesn't seem obvious from our own vantage points, can make all the difference. But you or I or anyone else has to be the person who takes the office. Ultimately, even God cannot make you and I do something we do not want to do. We don't control the consequences of our actions, but we can control what we choose to do.


Ask Adam and Eve. Ask Jesus. Heck, ask yourself.


The initial (re: first, pre-existing) conditions were ... well, there were no pre-existing conditions before God called existence into being. Let there be light, and there was light. When Adam and Eve were tending the garden, it was the serpent who encouraged Eve to make the choice, and then Eve encouraged Adam to make the choice, to disobey the one rule God had given them. And this was the set up of our spiritually fallen and constantly at war with one another world.


Jesus, as both the son of Joseph and as the Son of God, didn't have it any easier.


You can ask Him. You can ask Him, and there's nothing presumptuous or blasphemous about it. There had to be moments when Satan tempted Jesus after His forty days in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11; this wouldn't even BE a temptation if there was not something that didn't appeal to Jesus the Tempted) and there were moments in Gethsemane when Jesus would have loved to get out of dying for the sins of the world (Matthew 26:36-46, particularly His plea in verse 39) and in between.


But letting the "butterfly effect" Jesus generates affect us requires us to realize our initial condition.


The sins of the world, the acts that separate us from fellowship with God, include your sins and my sins. It's easy for us to see the sins of the world as war, famine, and disease that others cause, but what about when we do? Deliberate or not (In a way, this is a point that "social justice warriors" make, so God could be using them to sharpen us!), intentional or not, whether we like it or not, it's sin. Hence David's call in Psalm 19:12 to be cleansed from his secret faults.


The ones he doesn't/didn't even know he had. The ones you and I don't know we have.


Come, let us ask for that cleansing now, for our initial condition.

For you and I matter, and we can change one thing


to change everything,


David


P.S. I will continue as long as God allows me to write this devotional to keep in touch with you, and I hope it encourages us too! If it's not or you want me to get lost, please let me know. Thank you!

And thank YOU, Lord, that we can come to You in praise and prayer and that we can count on You to provide for all our needs according to Your riches in glory, even when we don't know what they are. (This happens more often than we think.) And we come to You in prayer for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence and all over the world.


Thank You as well, Lord, for everyone in leadership and sevice, in authority and power, both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have and the promise of new life through You by Your Son Our Brother, Jesus the Christ.


And now I pray that we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.