Mohs Was Wrong

So, after what has happened today, I discovered the the great mineralogist Mr. Mohs was wrong. Diamond isn't the hardest mineral—but I'll get to that.

Fancy story: the most humbling thing in the world is when the Lord speaks through you, and you end up getting convicted by the message that comes from out of your lips. Guess what? Yup. That happened to me today. This morning, I was chairing my church's service—which involves all sorts of administrative tasks & collaborations, including the leading of communion & a devotional time centred around it. The message that I had prepared for communion ran along the same lines as my most recent post (yes, that one just below) on this here blog. The long &the short of it was that I challenged the congregation to look at their lives, to reflect upon where they were at & see if they (we) were giving Jesus as much as He deserves. Now, at the time, I wasn't really thinking too much about me & about my life—I mean, being "at the front," you're supposed to be "all together," right? Well, that's how many people perceive it. Truth of the matter is that it doesn't matter what side of the pulpit you're occupying. People are people. Christians are people. We are all flawed.

Okay, enough of the sermonette. Getting back to the point of this post. This evening, I went to the worship service that I usually attend on Sunday evenings, and as we began singing, I recognised that I could not sing the words that were up there on the screen. I was amazed to realise that I would be lying right to God's face if I were to tell Him at that moment that He meant everything to me. On the contrary, the opposite would most likely have been more true. I was shocked. Apalled. Scared. What in the world had happened to me in the past few (several) weeks?! God had been replaced in my life. We no longer was the centre. What took precedence, I asked. Me. School. My academic pursuits.

No wonder I had been feeling miserable for teh past while! No wonder my concentration & overall compsure was messed up. No wonder things weren't driving smoothly: there was something seriously wrong with what I was doing, with how I was approaching the world—I had begun to think that this world was my world. Mistake. Big, bad mistake. As I was sitting in one of the back pews at this worship service, the Holy Spirit threw the words that came out of my mouth less than 12 hours earlier on that day, right into my face. "Do we value Christ as much as He is worth?" "Sometimes we need to change. This may involve starting something that you know you should start; stop something you know you shouldn't be doing; approach something in your life from a different perspective." Whabammo! Right to the heart. I was slammed, clobbered, broken to the bone. The Lord revealed to me that I had not been giving him what He deserved from me.

I was spending so much of my time worrying about my academic pursuits, worrying about whether I would get my assignments done well & in time or not, that I completley pushed God to the side & choked Him out of my life. Completely. ...Well not completely, one cannot force God to do anything, to be honest.

He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. --Matt 21:44

Diamond cannot scratch the stone mentioned above. Nothing can affect (or effect) it. It is the pinnacle of adamant, the cream of resilience, the picture of eternality (if that's even a word). Mohs' scale of hardness would perforce rate this Mineral as 10³—ten cubed. Falling in this Rock, I am necessarily broken, He is necessarily unscathed. It was what I needed to recognise that I had been dumb. The Lord woke me up. Is He worth more than my degree? Yes, when I come to think about it. Then why do I not give him precedence? Good question. Change is needed. He said to me, "I am the desire of your heart; seek after Me & all these other things will be added." Don't worry about these other things, He will look after it all, as long as you have your priorities straigh. He holds the universe in His hands, so He definitely knows how to take care of you & of the desires in your heart.

I broke. I had been a vessel that had contaminated its contents by mixing in the mud from the floor. I had compromised my position with the One True Giver of everything. I had forced Him out, since He has a distaste for impurity. And what's worse is that the more I focused on what I wanted, the less I had a desire to have God to anything in my life, the less He meant to me, the less His absence was bad.

I was broken. The Lord humbled me before Him & made me realise that without Him guiding my life, all was for naught. All was useless. It was time to change. It was time to shift priorities back to where they belong. That is what I am determined on doing. No more muddying teh waters, no more tainting what is the Lord's, no more claiming it as my life.

The greatest part of a broken vessel is that it no longer is able to contain poisoned water. In brokenness, there is renewal. In brokenness, there is reformation. In brokenness there is recommission. In brokenness there is opportunity for a cleansed, purged vessel, ready for the King's service yet again, as He puts the pieces back together with His loving & masterful hands.

Mohs' Scale of Hardness

Hardness	Mineral
1	Talc
2	Gypsum
3	Calcite
4	Fluorite
5	Apatite
6	Orthoclase
7	Quartz
8	Topaz
9	Corundum
10	Diamond

Why is it that the hardest things are the most valuable? When it comes to geology, the matter seems quite obvious: the harder a mineral is, the more resistant it is to erosion, scarring and overall decomposition. They stay together longer and keep their nice appearance because they're tough. Furthermore, harder substances can be used to refine & shape softer minerals. This very property was how the German geologist Frederich Mohs created his “rule of thumb” scale of hardness. Each mineral with a higher number would scratch and mineral with a number lower than it. Hence, limestone scratches talc; quartz, limestone; emerald, quartz; ruby, emerald and diamond, anything.

It's no wonder that gemstones all occupy the harder, upper, half of Mohs’ scale for hardness: they all are resistant to being scratched, and therefore stay shiny after being cut. The longer I live, the more I am beginning to appreciate that “hardness” and “value” are typically paired, across all areas of life. It is the challenges in life which we, as humans value more so than those “easy” things. This is why we applaud Olympians for their accomplishments; why we give out various Nobel Prizes; why there are “masters” and “masterpieces” in the fine arts. We recognise names like Einstein, Newton, Gretzky, Mozart, Leonardo, Galileo because we recognise that they have done things which we know to be hard.

Hardness doesn’t exist just in the world of great ones. Its value, I bet, can be seen in areas of your own life. Take my life for example: I don’t necessarily value walking or riding a bike, because these things are quite easy for me to do. However, things that require discipline and consistency are very difficult for me to do. Working out, getting my degree, relationships with other people and my relationship with Jesus Christ are all hard things for me to do. And it is, to some extent, precisely because these things are hard that I value them. On the other hand, it is precisely because these things are hard that I also hate them. So here I am, stuck in conflict between pursuing hard things because I value them and rejecting to pursue hard things because they require significant investment.

Another thing I've noticed about hard things is that—or the most part—our manner of engagement, that is your decision whether to pursue the hard thing or not, is self-reinforcing. The more often I go to the gym & work out, the easier it is for me to continue doing so, because I easily remember how enjoyable the experience is & how enjoyable its results are. When I stop going to the gym for a while for any reason, all I can think about is how much I don't want to go to the gym because of how hard the physical activity is & how much time it eats up during the day. The same goes for my relationship with Christ: if I habitually read my Bible, pray and spend alone time with the Lord, such activities become the joy of my day & I eagerly look forward to them. Conversely, when I stop doing these activities consistently & regularly, they become burdens to me, dutiful difficulties that I would rather forego for other, easier activities.

My university studies have been absorbing as much of my waking (and some of my sleeping) hours as I let it/as I can afford recently, and the demands of my program are only going to increase for the rest of this academic term. Needless to say, certain non-academic activities that I usually commit to have fallen to the wayside. I haven’t hit the gym to pump iron for over a month now and my time spent alone with God (or even with others) has suffered drastic temporal cutbacks within the previous 4 weeks. This leaves me in a state where I don’t really have much of a desire to pursue either of these activities: going to the gym takes effort & makes me feel tired; reading my Bible has become somewhat of a chore & praying has become somewhat of a perceived useless activity. It really is too bad, because I can recognise the value of all of these hard activities and I realise the potential impact of not doing these things will have on my overall life, but...

Attitude is a habitual beast: the longer you are doing something, the more favourable it appears. I bet that there has been some psychological study on this phenomenon, for analogues are easily seen in perceptual inertia & hysteresis effects as well as in social psychology's theory of interpersonal liking & love: the more that an individual is exposed to something, the more a.) its effects persist, b.) the individual prefers it. It would therefore, not be unreasonable to draw a similar conclusion that motivation & will may be subject to the same inertia/hysteresis effects.

Why am I saying all of this? Well, because it provides a means of escape from the vicious, self-reinforcing cycle of not wanting to go after the hard things. What is it, you ask? Simple: go after the hard things. The most difficult part of changing an attitude or an approach towards something is taking that first step. As soon as the first decision & the first actual engagement/“doing” of that hard thing is done, the easier the following engagements & decisions to continue will be.

To be honest, this post is mainly written for my own, personal kick-in-the-pants purposes, but I think that it would be good to let others know about this idea as well. I’m sure that there are things in your life, oh reader, that you know you should start doing (or stop doing). I can guarantee that there is some part of your life that needs change, but you either feel unable or unwanting (or both) to make that change. In my life, there are several of these, and reconnecting with Christ is the most important one in my life. The problem is that it's hard. It requires giving up energy; it demands doing something that you know will be difficult. It's hard to make that change. It's damn hard, but as we can see in Mohs’ scale of hardness, the harder something is, the more valuable it is. The harder something is, the longer it will last and the greater it will affect those easier, softer things.

Look at your life, as I am looking at mine, and recognise both the challenge and the value of pursuing the harder things. Pull a Nike and “Just do it,” because the hardest part is starting the change. It will get easier to continue in the change, the longer you actively pursue that change.

In Revelation 2:17, Jesus promises to give to whoever overcomes a white stone. Which white stone do you want him to give you: a block of talc, which will crumble into baby powder and disappear, or a diamond which can cut through anything as it shimmers and glows with an internal, eternal fire? The choice is yours & the choice is mine. Pursue the hard things, for in them you will find great value. Making that hard change will be worth it, so the only decision that remains is this: are you going to go after it or not?