The Assumptions of David

I've found it to be a truism that good leadership and followership both avoid assumptions.  Except when they're appropriate, of course.

We've likely all heard about the dangers of assuming: it makes an A-- out of U and ME (spells assume).  And yet the paradox is that we have to build our lives on assumptions.  Evangelist Cliffe Knechtle always used to talk about how our daily lives were based completely on faith: the faith that cars would stop at a red light so we could cross the street and the like.

I live my life assuming that I'll wake up tomorrow, that my car and house will still be here, that I'll have electricity and Internet and fresh water and enough food or money to buy food.  We take out 10- to 30-year mortgages and 3- to 6-year car loans.  We lay out 5-year personal and professional development plans.  Our lives are built on assumptions that we don't even think about.

Recently my senior pastor spent a month in Malawi and blogged about this idea.  Here is what he said that struck me: "We in the U.S. take a whole lot of stuff for granted - hot showers every morning, the ability to flush the toilet every time you use it, the ability to jump on a computer and have internet access.  Or the fact that your children are not reading and doing their schoolwork by candle light because the power is out.  It sounds romantic, but it really is not.  I hope to return even more grateful for all these daily things and not take them so for granted.  I also pray for the ongoing development of nations like Malawi, who enjoy the comforts as much as we do, but have also learned how to live without them much of the time."

"Comforts" is a great word choice here.  We so often assume that God wants to bless us materially.  By materially here I don't simply mean physical stuff, but things in the material realm.  This would include all those non-essentials which we think of as "essentials" to the good life.  I currently have the luxury of choosing to leave my high-paying job and am now trying to reorient my eyes, my brain, and my calendar and checkbook around this new, more obviously dependent reality.

There are many in the world who do not have this luxury, for whom there is no choice but simply the daily reality of living with less.  And, curiously, they are often living more full, more satisfied lives.  What is this paradox?  How can this be?  Could it be that the abundance of our lives is not just disconnected from, but potentially inverse with, our earthly comforts?  Could this be the foundation of the beatitudes from Matthew 5: Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven?  Could it be that when we have the kingdom of earth, we don't desire the kingdom of God enough?

And, therefore, maybe we won't inherit it after all?  Sobering thought, is it not?