by Ramesh Richard

A time management expert carefully placed a dozen fist-sized rocks in a wide-mouthed, glass jar and asked his audience of business professionals “Is the jar full?

“Yes,” they replied. 

“Really?” He poured a pail full of gravel into the jar. As he shook the container, the gravel found spaces to lodge themselves. “Is the jar full now?” he quizzed them.

Having caught on, they answered,

“Probably not.”

“Good!” he replied. He brought out a bucket of sand and poured a handful into the jar. The sand went into the space left between the rocks and the gravel.

Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?”

“No!” the class barked.

Again he said, “Good!” He then poured a mug of water to fill the jar to the brim.

“What is the lesson in this illustration?”

One immediately blurted the obvious: “No matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things into it!” 

“No,” the speaker replied, “That’s not the point. This illustration teaches us that if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

That insight holds true for your spiritual life as well. 

I want to suggest three big life rocks that must first be in place in your life, so the little rocks can find rightful lodging. After trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as your only God and Savior, you now possess divine presence and power to prioritize, plan, and place these rocks where they fit. Throughout the rest of your life, you will need to constantly return to these rocks as the basic, the first, the main three rocks of your spiritual life. Together, they comprise a biblical philosophy of spiritual existence. 
 
Life Rock 1: Your Passion  

A catalog from a watch store entices buyers “to fulfill a passion” with a $100 gift certificate. I don’t know how watches relate to passion, but perhaps pursuing expensive watches passionately justify an exquisite, direct mail catalog. You hear the word “passion” thrown about in a hundred contexts—work, food, automobiles, sports, computers, whatever. The word “passion” seems to generate emotion, actually over-emotion inside the heart, doesn’t it? 

The problem with understanding passion as “emotion” is that both the object and feelings can change at whim. We over-emote over different objects at the same time and over the same object at different times. If what you feel at any particular moment determines your passion, you easily retreat to a pre-Jesus heart-set. It is very possible to return to “the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance,” says Peter (1 Pet. 1:14).

A second problem with the “over-emotion” understanding of passion is that your non-evil passions compete within your soul. A prominent Christian businessman, when asked about his    passions, listed six in this order: “Work, family, Jesus Christ, two organizations where he serves as a Board member,” and added, “to be honest, put money in there as well.” I appreciated his honesty but grieved over his choices, priorities, and their implications. By experience I know that multiple passions tear the soul and destabilize and complicate life. The human heart was not made for a myriad of passions.

Passion addresses the biblical question, “What have you set your heart upon?” The root meaning is related to “suffering,” (e.g., the Passion Week). That definition forces the real question: “What have you set your heart upon intensely enough that you are willing to sacrifice for it?”

The Lord Jesus set His heart upon you so intensely that He was willing to die for you. He is passionate about you. In return, because He first loved us, the believer’s passion must be his love for the Lord Jesus, an expectation clearly stated in the first commandment: “Love him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” (Mark 12:30). Simply and straightforwardly, God wants your heart set upon him whatever it takes. The first life rock settles the question of your passion—love him for who He is with all you’ve got!

At this juncture, a natural question arises: Can I be passionate about other stuff in my life? My mate and family? What about an athlete about his sport and team? A businessperson about his work and deals?

Why, of course! Let me clarify. You can possess many passions in life, but only one passion of life. Read that line again. Taking any or many of those passions in life and turning them into the passion of your life causes spiritual dysfunction. You fall into idolatry. If your passions are of equal weight, they will compete and weaken your spiritual vitality. If they are founded and flow from a singular passion—the Lord Jesus Christ—you will experience His promise of life in all its fullness and dimensions. 

The fact of the matter is simple: You can’t love all the other stuff rightly if you don’t love Jesus as you should. Marriage illustrates this. If your relationship with your spouse is smooth, everything else is a little easier. But if it isn’t, everything else is affected adversely. Similarly, don’t be afraid of loving God as your first love, for then you can experience everything else—your family, business, even your car, rightly! When you love and enjoy Him, you can love and enjoy those passions in life, whether persons or things, fully and rightly. Make Jesus first love.
 
Life Rock 2: Your Mission 
 
The U.S. border patrol watched young Juan push his gleaming new bike everyday across the Mexico-U.S. border with a sandbag straddled across the center bar. Suspecting an illegal transport of contraband, one agent stopped Juan each day only to find sand in the sandbags. Spot-checking did not incriminate Juan either.

Finally in frustration one day the agent made a deal: “Juan, I’ll only ask you this question once. I’ll never stop you again from entering the country. I know you are smuggling something very valuable into the country. What is it? Tell me and I’ll never stop you again.”

Juan answered, “Bicycles!”

The boy’s mission was to smuggle in bicycles. He used sandbags to accomplish the mission. Instead too many Christians make hauling sandbags the mission of our lives. But the “sandbags of life”—the dimensions at which we must live—must fulfill our ulterior purpose, our mission.

Your life, like mine, may be divided into three major segments—(1) personal life (food, drink, exercise, spirituality, sexuality, leisure, etc.), (2) family life (spouse, kids, parents, siblings, relatives, etc.), and (3) work life (home, business, company, performance issues, relationships with colleagues, etc). These “sandbags” must straddle the center bar rather than become the mission of our lives.

Before you came to know Jesus, you had no resources to please anyone but yourself. Upon conversion you possess the capacity to pursue a valid mission. Your mission, according to God’s Word, is to glorify God—to make Him look good. The purpose of your existence is to make God look good—whether by eating and drinking or in whatever you do (1 Cor. 10:31). You exist to glorify God. That’s your mission. Missions in life—personal, family, and work life—are hung on the center bar of God’s glory—the mission of your life. 

“Glory” in the Bible is derived from the word for “weight” (e.g., phrases like, “throwing around his weight,” or “carrying clout”). Consequently, I ask two questions for you to process slowly, think deeply, and act upon soon: (1) In which segment of your life—personal, family, or work—is God a lightweight at present? Is it food habits, use of money, marriage, or integrity at work? (2) In which aspect of your life should He increase His weight? Identify these areas, write them in the margins, and strategize to increase God’s weight in those areas. 
 
Life Rock 3: Your Vision
 
 Sir Percival Lowell was the most distinguished astronomer at the turn of the 20th century. Known for predicting the existence of the planet Pluto, he was also one of the leading authorities on Mars. Lowell theorized that Mars featured a network of water canals on its surface. He was so eminent that no one dared question his findings. But today’s NASA scientists know Mars much better than Lowell could ever hoped to know. They have sent sophisticated probes to map the planet like the back of our hands but did not find a single water canal! The field of ophthalmology has also advanced since 1900. We now know for certain that when Lowell thought he was studying Mars, all he was doing was mapping the blood vessels in his own eyeballs. “Lowell’s Syndrome,” an eye disease has actually been named after him.

That same “vision” problem afflicts all of us. We equate vision with pursuing the things near to us, urgent demands, and pressing stresses. We construct goals for life’s three aspects—personal, family and work—and presume we are looking at God’s eternal purposes. Without good eyes we can’t see at all. But a good pair of spiritual eyes became a reality at conversion. All areas of life must be restructured for our mission to make God look good. But our daily mission is not to be our total life vision. Avoid the spiritual eye disease that equates the near with the far and substitutes mission for vision, exchanging the penultimate with the ultimate.

Instead, God’s vision for the whole world beckons us to lift our eyes and not map our own eyeballs. If God’s mission is to bring glory to Himself, then His vision is to bring all peoples to Himself. This is not a new thought for God. His vision of bringing people to Himself runs from eternity to eternity. A quick survey of Scriptures from the Old to the New Testaments reinforces God’s global vision (see diagram below). 

In late 1999 the world crossed the Six-Billion Rubicon. Six billion is a rather large number. One billion hours ago mankind had not yet walked on earth; only one billion minutes have passed since Jesus till now. Human population has quadrupled in only 100 years, with the last billion added in a little over 4000 days. But we have yet to top off. Population is especially increasing in places where Jesus is least known and understood.

Here’s where you come in. As one who has experienced new life, you are called to participate in God’s vision. Someone has noted that people are controlled by the strengths of their vision. I propose, however, that people are governed by the weaknesses of their visions. You and I, if left to our eye diseases, will carry too weak a vision. We are ruled by quantity and quality of immediate life issues—what car to drive, what clothes to wear, how much money to save for retirement. These are little, weak significances that at best create weak visions for the future.

Instead, God calls us to “make Jesus well known” by implementing His vision. The vision carries a cost, and we ought to regularly evaluate the validity of the vision by its costs. God’s vision cost him the life of His Son. He doesn’t call you to participate in anything that hasn’t cost Him everything already.

In addition to taking responsibility in terms of your personal, family, and work life, you would add “ministry life” to that mix as a major dimension. Get involved in ministry at one of two levels—a leadership role or a support role. You can even lead in one part of God’s vision and support other parts of His vision depending on how you manage your time, talent, energy, and money. Be ready to lend support or actively lead in whatever role He gives to you in implementing His vision.

Passion relates to the person of God, mission to the purpose of God, and vision to the program of God. When you put these life-rocks in place, the lesser ones— responsibilities, activities, hobbies, etc.—will find their right places within your life. The passion of your life would be to make Jesus the first love of your life. The mission of your life would be to make Jesus look good in your life. The vision of your life would be to make Jesus well known through your life. I am glad we can join in the most effective and full life that has ever been offered to the human race.
 
© Ramesh Richard. Please reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit Dr. Ramesh Richard, (2) no modifications are made, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you do not make more than 100 copies, (5) you include the web site address www.rreach.org on the copied resource. For placing this material on the web, a link to the document on our web site is preferred. If your intended use is other than that outlined above, please contact here.