Square Gears

Have you ever seen square gears? I have a small set of three square gears on my desk and they actually mesh and work! You see, when the gears go around, the corners are actually going in a circle. If the gears are properly positioned in relation to each other the corners will intersect at their neighbor’s flat sides and they will mesh and work fine.

Have you ever wondered if you were a square gear in a round gear world? Or looked at others and figured them to be in that category? Who is the final arbiter of whether round or square gears are normal? As a Christian, have you ever felt outnumbered or had difficulty meshing in secular society or business?

As Americans, we are schooled in the principles of a democratic republic and taught early-on that the majority rules. And that’s well and good in our political system. But we are then prone to extrapolate that principle into our culture and allow the culture to decide too many other questions of life. Culture seems to decide there should be ever-decreasing standards of decency, language and education with the foolish notion that this will produce ever-increasing standards of living. Our politicians have taught us that “to get along we must go along”; that for our system to work we must learn “the art of compromise”. In our headlong rush to achieve social inclusion of every person or idea or religion, what we are actually achieving is not a seamless society but the balkanization of society. More and more laws are passed to erase the seams but all they do is create more seams.

This is nothing new. The Bible is replete with account after account of God’s chosen people being seduced into thinking that their neighbors’ culture or religion was the true normal or “round gear” system, losing sight of God’s values just because from the world’s view they appeared to be “square gears”. And isn’t that what the world thinks – that the Christian way is all “square gears” and will never work? But Christians have learned the secret that when we get in line with God (mesh correctly with Him), suddenly everything works like God designed for it to and what once appeared unworkable now works marvelously. Have we checked how we’re meshing lately?

My prayer is that we will all be encouraged to be so immersed in God’s values and system that we will see them as the norm, and not what the world would try to make us believe is the norm. This will happen as we spend more and more time in prayer and God’s word and other Christian resources. Will we do it?

TODAY'S PERSONAL PARAPHRASE

Psalm 23:4
Even though my "to do" list has been taken over by events, I will stick with you, Lord, for you are with me. Your discipline and your promises are a great strength to me.