Connect the Dots

Connect the Dots
TCF Sermon
March 27, 2011

There are a lot of skills we need in life to cope with the realities of our daily existence. For example, we need to learn to get along with people, because without that skill, almost anything we do in life will be difficult if not impossible.

We need to learn to care for our basic health needs. In most cases, no one’s going to do that for us. More and more, we need to know some of the basics of how to use a computer, because we need that skill in school, in the workplace, and beyond.

There’s another skill I want to focus on this morning, one we don’t always think of as a needed skill. When we’re thinking about how and why some things happen in life, a critical skill to develop is to learn to connect the dots.

Now, you know the old game – you have a picture made partially or entirely of dots, and you have to draw connecting lines, usually in the correct order, to see the whole picture.

Once you do that, in the metaphorical connecting of the dots, you begin to understand how things fit together, cause and effect, relationships between events in your life.

To help us think about how this skill looks in real life, I’ve devised a little quiz.

Gordon drives his sporty little Mazda 3 at 90 miles per hour on the interstate and is pulled over by a state trooper. The trooper gives Gordon a:
• friendly greeting
• cookie
• speeding ticket

Maren prefers sleeping late to showing up at work on time. After arriving at the office two to three hours late for two weeks in a row, Maren’s boss tells her to:
• get to bed a little earlier
• take some vacation time to rest up
• look for another job

As a result of their choices, Gordon and Maren will likely both experience unpleasant consequences. But, if they learn to connect the dots, between their behavior, and what happens as a result of their behavior, Gordon will be a safer driver, and Maren will be a better employee. And maybe even keep her job.

We learn to connect the dots every day in little things and big things.

Eat too much – gain weight
Sit too much – gain weight
Eat ice cream for breakfast lunch and dinner – gain weight
Beat your head against the wall – headache

Other dots take longer to connect – in other words, it’s a longer, more circuitous route to get from point a to point z. And I think this is where we sometimes struggle in our spiritual lives, perhaps because the connections aren’t as apparent, though with some thought and insight, sometimes they may really be just as clear as these simple examples.

When you connect the dots, you understand the connections and relationships between the things you do and the things that happen.

Sometimes those things that happen may be far removed from your own experience, but there are still dots connecting them, if you can follow them far enough.

There are several ways we could examine this idea and gain from understanding it, but this morning, I’d like to focus on two specific ways that connecting the dots relates to our relationship with Christ.

First, I’d like us to explore how to connect the dots in our daily choices of what we do, how we serve Him, and in our prayers, and our giving, and what that