Something fantastic ...

Montag, Oct 13, 2014. I have to tell you something great, something fantastic. It has to do with things which are really valuable. When I was about 12 years old, I was searching for what has value, what can hold you, what can give you a lasting ground of your life, of your activities. I was searching for something which has value by itself.

Lasting ground? …

That time, I also thought: somehow it cannot come from me. It cannot come from any other human - since ultimately they are just like me, and they are not the lasting ground. We are all weak, just flesh, a beating heart, but vulnerable, and we will all go soon, leave this world. Where is the lasting ground, on which you can build your life?

That time I have been sitting in my room, in the roof of our house. I thought that all what I knew until then cannot be the lasting ground. Not words, not goals, not achievements which our society and civilization had created. It is all in a process of flow. And it is all vain, it is all perishable. The kingdoms come and go, but what is holding forever?

It is fantastic: I have found what is holding forever. I have found a lasting ground. I have found what I was looking for. The value, which can hold you. The power, which will give you hope. The purpose which does not perish. I have found it! That is a great thing!

Found! What a joy! …

As a scientist I know these phases where you search, and you do not know yet. You try to find some proof, or some result, and it is all unclear. You may spend years on it. You have to dig deep. You read books. You ask other scientists. You try to understand. You sit with pen and paper. You search … it is research! And then, step by step sometimes, but also in one go at other occasions, you may find. Suddenly it is all clear, at some point. I had it recently in my mathematical research. I found some insight I had been looking for for over ten years! And I found an algorithmic approach I have been trying to do for quite a while, about five years. That was great joy, when I found both of them in one week!

It was similar, but with much deeper impact, when I found the lasting ground. It is the Lord, it is Jesus, it is father, son and holy spirit. They are the ground. They are the beginning and the end. They are the ultimate goal, and they are the only power which can hold you, which is hope by itself, and which will last forever. What a joy, to have found this ground. What a fantastic experience, which keeps going on day by day, week by week. Peace comes from him, from the triune God. Change comes from him - which I need, being very far from being perfect! But all of it leads to praise. Let us formulate a little bit of it, using Psalm 150:

1 Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens.

2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness.

3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre,

4 praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe,

5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.

6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. (Psalm 150)

Let us dig deeper into this, dig deeper into praise and the good reasons for it over the next days, - if the Lord gives us an open door for it. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts