Adjustments are Healthy and Necessary

After watching the debates last night I saw the financial analysts in a panic saying that the markets in Europe were going crazy. Losses of their stock markets were hitting 5% or more on average. These were bad signs for the "futures" on the Dow Jones Index. The futures are basically numbers that the market will open with in the morning. People were selling like crazy and the market was going to open with a loss of over 500 points! This morning when I turned on my television I read "Breaking News: Fed drops rates .75pt in emergency meeting" (The markets opened better but still had a loss of right around 400 points right away.)

Then about a half hour later while dropping my son off at his school I noticed the teachers were trying to show a video on an old-time television, the type of television with the VHF and UHF dials (in black and white). It reminded me of the TV we had when I was a kid. This type of TV is the kind we used to attach coat hangers and aluminum foil to in order to get the local station. (Channel surfing wasn't as much fun back then)

As the teacher started the cartoon, the screen kept rotating vertically with a black bar across the middle. The cartoon was rolling like a slot machine in Ceaser's Palace. Recognizing the problem and recalling my childhood I stood at the entrance as the teacher tried frantically to adjust the screen. After about 30 seconds I realized this lady hadn't been privileged to enjoy the finer things in life like this old beat-up TV. Offering my assistance, I walked over and found my old friend, the "v-hold" knob. With a quarter-twist the screen stopped rotating and the show was on. The 'Ol vertical hold was at fault once again. Excited toddlers ready to start their day applauded and thanked this industrious dad for the assistance.

With these two incidents as the forefront and our own church circumstance as the backdrop I began to think... Adjustments ARE indeed both healthy and necessary. While some financial analysts were crying like chicken little, I recalled a few older, more seasoned investors saying "This is needed. This adjustment is good for the market. It feels bad now but it is an adjustment." The same investors also said "The Fed's actions today were also needed. They will do little in the short term but for the long term it was a good sign."

Why are adjustments so needed? Simply put, adjustments are needed to return to proper alignment. When your back gets out of line a Chiropractor lines things back up for you. When you see the schedule taking over you realize you need to adjust to add some margin to your life. In the church-world we tend to get short-sighted. We tend to run from adjustments.
But why?

We avoid adjustments for many reasons but I believe the largest reason is that we have PRIDE. We're too prideful to admit when we're not meeting the goals and expectations outlined by our savior. Our pride can't admit that what we're doing isn't bringing people to Jesus or leading them to follow Him in their daily lives. When the gauges get out of whack we have to make adjustments.

Something to chew on: "The bigger the problem the bigger the necessary adjustment."