Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Monday July 12, 2010

When I was in Elementary School "Gulliver’s Travels" was required reading. It was read via declamation meaning that each student would read an assigned portion etc until a chapter was read and then the teacher would lead us in discussion. I still remember the time as being interesting and practical lessons were learned.

Over the years the series of books, "Gullivers Travels" has been sentenced to the literary graveyard as "Children's" books. Perhaps this was done to try to dilute the subtle message of the series which was/is a repudiation of Enlightenment influence. Travels were written under the pseudonym, Lemuel Gulliver, by Jonathan Swift. Jonathan was a fine Dubliner and his Irish wit/satire was famous. Dr. Swift served as Dean of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Jonathan Swift wrote many things that captured my curiosity and here's one:

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought."

For millenniums people saw peanuts. One Day George Washington Carver saw a peanut and began thinking what no one else had ever thought. The rest is history.

How many times have you seen mold? More than you can count and so had most everyone on earth up until 1928. Alexander Fleming saw a particular mold which he was about to throw into the waste can when something caught his attention. He saw what millions had seen before, but he thought what no one prior had ever thought and millions upon millions of lives have been saved via Sir Fleming's discovery and development of penicillin. My little, well alright, younger sister, Bertie's life was saved via this "miracle" discovery of Dr. Fleming.

Tragically many Christians "see" the truth of the Christian faith pretty much the same as all other Christians. It is when one starts thinking about this truth a little differently that grand things begin to happen. Martin Luther comes to mind as do William and Catherine Booth.

Have you ever really thought about the implications of being a follower of Christ?

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2010 Use with credit.

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