It has been said that the quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
Contentment is the key to plenty. “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. ... So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content” (1 Timothy 6:8-9, cf Proverbs 21:20, 21:5).
What an amazing piece of art, digital though it may be. In it, the essence and even substance of the child is "made" from the essense and substance of the parent. The one's holes are the other's gain.
[Though it is digital] it is not an AI-generated piece. It was created by Chad Knight, a digital artist known for his surreal and emotionally resonant 3D art … this sculpture is a digital creation and doesn’t exist as a tangible, physical object. It was rendered using 3D modeling software and is meant to be experienced visually on screens rather than in a gallery or museum space.
This grpahic artistry captures beautifully the symbiotic relationship between parent and child. Our children are literally formed out of the matter our own physical being -- the egg, the sperm, the DNA which we contribute. Then as we raise them, we continually, sacrificially give ourselves to them for their growth and welfare. Over time, they are molded and shaped by the fabric of our being, and then reflect, to some measure, the image of our likeness. We are inextricably intertwined.
And yet, as significant as our own symbiotic relationship is with our children, it is infinitely more true of our relationship with God, our Father. We are made in His image. It is He that has made us. In the Person of Jesus, He sacrficed Himself for our own welfare. He is our ultimate model, and we are called to be conformed to His image.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27, ESV).
"And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24, ESV).
Author and self-help guru, James Clear, has this to say about building good habits (and the frustrations that can come in the process):
Imagine that you have an ice cube sitting on the table in front of you. The room is cold and you can see your breath. It is currently twenty-five degrees. Ever so slowly, the room begins to heat up. Twenty-six degrees. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. The ice cube is still sitting on the table in front of you. Twenty-nine degrees. Thirty. Thirty-one. Still, nothing has happened. Then, thirty-two degrees. The ice begins to melt. A one-degree shift, seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it, has unlocked a huge change. Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change. This pattern shows up everywhere. Cancer spends 80 percent of its life undetectable, then takes over the body in months. Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it builds extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the air within six weeks. Similarly, habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold and unlock a new level of performance.
The time between our first efforts to developed a new, healthy habit or spiritual discipline, and the time when we feel we've finally attained a measure of success, can seem interminable. It is in this time of "try and try again" that many of us simply give up. This is what Clear calls The Valley of Dissappointment.
You expect to make progress in a linear fashion and it’s frustrating how ineffective changes can seem during the first days, weeks, and even months. It doesn’t feel like you are going anywhere. It’s a hallmark of any compounding process: the most powerful outcomes are delayed. This is one of the core reasons why it is so hard to build habits that last. People make a few small changes, fail to see a tangible result, and decide to stop. You think, “I’ve been running every day for a month, so why can’t I see any change in my body?” Once this kind of thinking takes over, it’s easy to let good habits fall by the wayside. But in order to make a meaningful difference, habits need to persist long enough to break through this plateau—what I call the Plateau of Latent Potential.
The Plateau of Latent Potential ... what a concept! Instead of a mountaintop, you only see a dead, dry plateau. But this is the time to resolve to stay in the struggle! Why?
Complaining about not achieving success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees. Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees. When you finally break through the Plateau of Latent Potential, people will call it an overnight success. The outside world only sees the most dramatic event rather than all that preceded it. But you know that it’s the work you did long ago —when it seemed that you weren’t making any progress—that makes the jump today possible.
It's been accurately said that spiritual growth is not a sprint, but a marathon. God calls us to "put off" old ways and habits, and "put on" new ones instead (Ephesians 4:22-24). It is a long and arduous process, given to much frustration and dissapointment. But we are called to "not grow weary" in our efforts (Galatians 6:9).
Spiritual growth, health, and effectiveness are all waiting for us (regardless of how it is expressed through our personal spiritual gifts and abilities). But to attain it, we must not give up hope and endurance atop the Plateua of Potential and risk slipping into the Valley of Dissapointment.
Stay strong. Growth and spiritual maturity is NOT beyond your grasp. Like Paul, we must resolve to "press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14, ESV).
As James Clear concludes, "Change can take years—before it happens all at once."
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us" (Hebrews 12:1, NLT).