The thinking thing - 1/2

The problem with having a brain is that we have to use it. Don’t laugh - it can actually be a serious problem for some of us sometimes. No, really - not like that - I’m serious!

As a teenager, trying to work everything out, I got exhausted trying to figure it all out. Why this? Why that? Why did things happen that just weren’t fair, or right, or proper (well according to the Gospel of Dennis, anyway). I still struggle with injustice but have learned to expect it in life, rather than get upset about it. And there were many times I would hate the fact that I had a brain and I just wanted to stop having to THINK!

I once had a job in a factory in Thames for a while, bending exhaust pipes. Campbell Tube products made a range of after-market exhaust pipes for the likes of Toyota Starlets, Nissans, Hondas and whatever was needed. My foreman at the time wasn’t a particularly likeable dude (we all thought he was a little stuck-up, if you really want to know) but I loved the job - because it was so amazingly boring. Yup - boring, and I loved it! I could stand there day after day and just let my mind wander. It was so very relaxing.

You see when you’ve got a bit of brainpower, it is like a breath of freshness to have “time-out” from thinking for a while and, well, just not have to think. I would go to work, clock in, take a piece of pipe from the pile on the left of me, put it into a pipe bending machine, push a button to bend it, and then place the pipe on a pile to the right of me. At morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea, at the sound of the hooter, we would all wander out to the smoko room and talk about something probably quite meaningless, and all wander off home at the end of the day. So unbelievably mind-bendingly boring, but oh, so mentally relaxing.

The company had a production schedule for costing purposes - each model had a “units per hour” norm that production costs were based on. I was always ahead of target. Sometimes by a factor of many times. I used to enjoy chatting with a couple of mates I had in the engineering department who would tweak the jigs a little to make the process a little more efficient. I think on a few products I was even ten times more efficient than the cards expected. The foreman would conceal them from me so that I wouldn’t know how far ahead of production norms I was, but I didn’t mind because I did the efficiency thing for my own pleasure. Mind you, it was a gripe of mine that he took all the credit for it in his production bonuses, but hey - that’s too much thinking to worry about now.

This thinking thing can be a real challenge, especially when we realise that our actions always follow our thinking, and when we realise that we become accountable for our actions. I also get a little nervous when I think that I will also be accountable for my thoughts, as well as actions on the big day of accountability.

The bible tells us that there is a day sometime in the future, when we will all have to face up to our maker. This one’s definitely not a politically correct subject, this one of accountability, and especially not of the biblical sort, but if we are capable of thinking, we’ve really got to think this one through one way or another.

I love seeing people get themselves in a lather over the existence of God. I think the question “Is there a God?” is quite funny really. Of course there is a God. If you doubt it you’re simply not thinking. Do ten minutes research into evolution or creation science and you’ll see what I mean. Please engage your brain and be honest before you read any further!

Christianity is such a thinker’s religion, and is so very revealing about the depth of thought that one has. The big sadness I have, is that for so many people, coming to faith in Christ seems to be a license to switch off their brains! OMG, it’s almost like when the lights come on up top, the brain seems to switch off. As far as I can see it usually takes years to undo the brain-fuzziness and turn the brain back on!

The Lord knows that reason. logic and thinking are a big part of our walk of faith, and He tells it to us straight (as He always does) when talking through Isaiah:

Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Isaiah 1:16b-18

How’s that? Our Creator actually wants us to think? Oh cool - maybe this thinking thing isn’t too bad after all!

I love the fact that God’s call to reason follows immediately after His call for justice - this is my kind of God. One who calls us to reason - to use our brains. Now that’s my kind of God, and it’s definitely the VICTUS IN AMBITUS way.