THE SURGE
  • SurgeHome
    • Good News
    • I'm New
    • Prayer
    • Community >
      • About Us
    • SurgeOnline
    • Contribute >
      • CoronaVirusRelief
    • Current Series
    • Message Archive
    • Surge Blog

The Surge Blog

my heart overflows with a good theme...
~Psalm 45:1a

How I changed the world ~ Greg J

6/4/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
A university department of Atmospheric Science for several years employed me as a student to program computers for climate analysis.  Dr. Kung presented to me an old computer program to adapt to a new kind of analysis.  I noticed that the old program set the value of the gravitational constant g as 9.8 m/s². My physics textbook gave g as 9.80665.  After checking other sources, I changed g to the physics book value that had more digits of precision.

My program crunched data overnight and produced dozens of pages of numbers and pretty contour plots.  Dr. Kung smiled at the results.  Then he frowned.  He flipped back and forth through the pages, murmuring, “This is not what I expected.”

A week later he summoned me to his office.  “Where did this ‘g’ come from?” he demanded.  I explained.

He sighed.  “Gregory, these measurements come from a mile above the earth’s surface.  Up there the earth’s gravity is a little bit weaker than it is down here.” Then he rubbed it in: “By turning up gravity, you have sucked all the clouds out of the sky!”

Picture
OK.  Have I established that I am sometimes wrong about verifiable facts of physics? That granted, is it surprising that I misjudge more complex phenomena, like people?  Moreover, few situations require judgments.  So, as I previously explained, I resolved to avoid judging people until required. 

Then I found in myself two more forms of premature judgment.

First, I unnecessarily judge myself.  Of course, self-understanding is highly desirable. Not for radishes or gravel, but for humans, a complete lack of self-examination leads to disaster. But does continual self-examination really help?  Many of my self-evaluations have been way off.  Even if my evaluations were correct for some other place and time, they often are wrong for the here and now!   I have mammoth biases about myself. The smart thing to do is defer self-judgment.  Somebody concurs:

     “I do not care if I am judged by you or by any human court.
     I do not even judge myself. I know of no wrong I have done,
     but this does not make me right before the Lord.
     The Lord is the One who judges me.
     So do not judge before the right time; wait until the Lord comes.”

Yet another form of premature judgment is judging God. How do I judge God?  I necessarily misunderstand God in many ways.  Judging God usually takes this form: I decide that I deserve better than what I have. 

One step that helps me is to consider an alternate perspective. 

For example, people ask: Why is there suffering?

If this is an academic question, not from someone who in pain, then there exists a counter-question:

Why is there pleasure?  Why should we deserve times of happiness, beauty, contentment, or anything pleasant?

Put that way, I realized I was beating on God from a mighty small frame of reference. I'm not the first.

Then the Lord answered Job from the storm. He said:
  "Who is this that makes my purpose unclear
       by saying things that are not true?
   Be strong like a man!
   I will ask you questions,
        and you must answer me.
   Where were you when I made the earth's foundation?
       Tell me, if you understand.
   Who marked off how big it should be? Surely you know!
   Who stretched a ruler across it?
   What were the earth's foundations set on,
       or who put its cornerstone in place
       while the morning stars sang together
       and all the angels shouted with joy?"

Have I made mistaken evaluations of the physical world? Check.  Have I made mistaken judgments of other people, of myself, and of God? Check, check, check, to the 9.8th power.

A fruitful strategy to lose a bad habit is to displace it with a good habit.  The scriptures urge, “let him who stole, steal no more, but rather let him give”.  Here's how I somewhat displaced the bad habit of premature judgment.
  • Instead of prematurely judging people, I can love people. I can exercise compassion and grace.
  • Most ways I judge myself involve dwelling on the past or wringing hands about the future. So the cure for that is to give attention and involvement to the here-and-now.  Ability to do this grows with practice.
  • Instead of prematurely judging God, I can gratefully count my blessings.  I am particularly grateful for gravity; not too much; not too little; just right to have a mix of sunshine and clouds. 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Our Writers:

    At The Surge we love doing things together... that includes writing a blog!  Here are a few of our main contributing authors:

    Greg Johnson

    Jesus++
    Me--

    Dwaine Darrah

    Our fearless leader, Dwaine is the lead pastor at The Surge.  His experience in counter terrorism with the CIA prepared him for ministry and he likes dogs and babies even more than E does.

    E

    E (short for Eric Reiss) is the Wingman at The Surge and likes dogs, music, Mexican food, his wife Karen and his little girl Evangeline... not necessarily in that order.

    Archives

    September 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    June 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

    Categories

    All
    Beliefs
    Betrayal
    Buildings
    Caesar
    Career
    College
    Corn Flakes
    Decisions
    Denomination
    Fishing
    Holy
    Hope
    Jesus
    Kids
    Lord’s Supper
    Memorizing
    Missions
    Pan And Echo
    People
    Peter
    Psychology
    Respect
    Rock
    Rome
    Shadows
    Time Discernment

    RSS Feed

Picture

(571) 748-3359

​Small Groups
I'm New
​SurgeOnline
The Surge Community Church
Meeting Sunday Mornings at The State Theatre in Falls Church, 11:10am!
Meeting Sunday Evenings Online with SurgeOnline, 7:00pm!

  • SurgeHome
    • Good News
    • I'm New
    • Prayer
    • Community >
      • About Us
    • SurgeOnline
    • Contribute >
      • CoronaVirusRelief
    • Current Series
    • Message Archive
    • Surge Blog