Practical

I have been on the road traveling a bit, and been observing people living and running their day today lives in the context of a developed world, a change from the rural location where I live. I met a very senior person during this journey. Well, senior at my age means above 70! This person has lived and spent all his life bringing up his family, children and giving them the best options for life and even now is available to some of them, as they go through challenges in their mid-life, with advice and money and presence. In my conversations he told me – tell your children to be practical about life! He was an accomplished professional who made plans for his family, resources, and brought up his children well and planned their lives and supported them. Practical in every way.

What is practical? What I observed and gathered from the many lives I saw - Think using the faculties you have. The faculties of reason and logic. Look at the context around you, think and plan and align your lives in line with what is happening around you, to make the best of your life. See that in this planning, you leave the best for your next generation. But protect yourself from getting wounded in the process. See that you protect self and others around you. If by chance you get wounded, try to make the best out of that too.

I was wondering – have I been practical? Being practical is being logical and rational. Have I been rational and logical?

I was reading today of the 12 spies who we send by Moses to spy the land. When they came back, 10 of them were rational and logical in their approach. But Caleb was a bit irrational and illogical. And the crowd decided to stone Caleb and his friend was being irrational and illogical! Irrational and illogical for them meant seeing beyond logic and reason. They were able to see things beyond the visible, understand things beyond the logical and reason. Is seeing beyond the visible, reasoning beyond the normal reasoning’s of the majority, being impractical?

I just read this from a letter Ravi Zachariah wrote – “I think of a beautiful painting I saw years ago in a church, of a little child looking at the hands of Jesus. I asked the pastor what the Spanish words written under the painting meant. He said that the little girl is asking Jesus, “What happened to your hands?” I stared at the picture for several moments and pondered our run. When each of us is finished his or her run, can a child look at our worn feet and ask, “What happened? Why the fatigue, why the callouses?” How wonderful if we could point to those hands of our Lord and say, “It was because of those hands.” Our feet ran for his hands.”

Was Jesus being practical in his approach? As per the general understanding of being practical, what he did would have been the most impractical illogical decision he took! To get wounded in the process of saving the world! To leave the redemption to 12 seemingly useless friends of his. And many such illogical irrational decisions!

So what is being practical? Being practical is seeing beyond reason or logic. Because there is an invisible logic and reason, the logic and reason of faith. Faith not in an irrational concept but in a living God, who expects us to live illogical lives! And if we live such lives hopefully we will be able to look at our callouses and say, it was worth it, because of those hands….!