Week 8—Friday John 8:31-36
Week 8—FRIDAY
THREE MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES
We are meditating on the fact that the Christian way is written into the constitution of things. A professor of mathematics said to our Ashram group:
I’ve learned three principles in my study of mathematics: (1) In mathematics you must be completely honest. You cannot play tricks on mathematics if you are to get any results. It demands complete honesty or there is frustration. (2) There are no shortcuts in mathematics. You must work out the problem stage by stage and be completely honest at every stage before you arrive at the answer. (3) The answer is the problem. Because there is a problem there must be the answer or there would have been no problem. The answer is wrapped up in the problem.
These three principles are Christian principles—(1) Complete honesty and truthfulness—“Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land?” (Acts 5:3). (2) Faithfulness in the little—“Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much” (Matt. 25:21). (3) The problem and the answer are bound up together. “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19).
These principles of the Christian faith are to be found in relationships in industry. A management engineer who specializes in human relations says that when he takes hold of a sick business to put it on its feet again he finds that the sickness is not in the business, but in the persons concerned. They get snarled up with themselves; they can’t get along with themselves, so they project those snarls out into their relationships. They cannot get along with others. So cooperation dies, and the business turns sick. He says he cannot straighten out that business until he straightens out the people, so he sits with executives and heads of departments till after midnight. “Yes, we are snarled up within,” they say, “but how do we get unsnarled?”
O Father, we thank you that questions like these drive us to you. They make you inevitable. For you are the answer to every need of ours whether that need be physical or spiritual or social. We are made for you and we are restless until we rest in you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The little things that come up day by day are the testing ground for the greater.