The Biggest Picture

Posted January 26, 2022

One of the most well-known historic scholars, Pythagoras, was one of the first people to hint towards the possibility of infinity. The Greek word apeiron had connotations of being unbounded, indefinite, undefined, and formless. Eudoxus of Cnidus and Archimedes actually developed a technique, later known as the method of exhaustion, to create a way around the thought of infinity, and the symbol of infinity was not developed until 1665 by John Wallis, an English mathematician who contributed substantially to the origins of calculus (Britannica). It wasn’t until 1873 the German mathematician Georg Cantor resolved some of infinity’s questions, but even in the 20th Century there were still new theories and ideas created that tried to explain the concept (Rucker). Even today, it’s still something we have trouble understanding.

The concept of infinity can baffle even the greatest of thinkers. Even the idea is incomprehensible, incoherent, to the human mind. Its literal definition is something that cannot be defined. Take a moment to let that sink in.

With that said, I can now relate this to something we're all very familiar with: life. After stepping away from a life of sin and accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are guaranteed to be able to spend eternity—infinity—with Him. Therefore, our lives, with this logic, are infinitely small, since the timeline is forever extending both backward and forward.

We do not have that much time to work and to fulfill our goals in life. Right now, I want you to imagine your number one goal in your life. It could be graduating high school, maybe attending a university, getting a job you've worked towards your entire life, or retiring. Even in our infinitely short lives, it seems to us that there's a lot of time to do a lot of things.

Personally, I've always wanted a plan and goal for everything I do. Whether that be what classes I take next semester, or what type of career I may pursue, I've always wanted a roadmap. Recently though, I've had a realization that has made me think. Let's read the following scripture, then I’ll explain.

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:36-40 NIV

In our lives, Jesus sets forth what the greatest commandment is, which encompasses the entirety of teachings of Jesus into one statement: Love the Lord your God with everything in you. The second, which is similar, is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Why does Jesus say that the second commandment is like the first? The answer is simple. Through our love and trust for the Lord, our hearts are morphed in a way that allows us to love our neighbors as ourselves. It must also be mentioned that you must love yourself (you must love yourself as God has made you) to love others, as it says in verse 39. We must love God, our neighbors, and ourselves, all three, to be able to create the relationship we want and need with God. We can see that in fact Jesus is the living example of this precisely. He shows us how to love our Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. He shows us how to love our neighbors as ourselves. He shows us how to love ourselves just as God created us. The entirety of the Law is based on this, as stated in verse 40.

Our goal every single day is to become more and more like Jesus, which means we must be willing to do the things Jesus did and does and will, and love the way Jesus loved and loves and will love. We must love unconditionally.

This brings us back to my most important realization that has prompted much of the thought I will address in a moment. In our infinitely small lives, we have the opportunity to affect someone for infinity. Let me say that again. In our infinitely small lives, we have the opportunity to affect someone for infinity. Our number one goal, regardless of anything else in our lives, should be to love as Jesus loves and to be as Jesus is. There are many ways to go about doing this, but whatever we do, we must give our all to God, our neighbors, and ourselves. My realization is that our number one goal should be based on this: The only thing that can make an actual and infinitely lasting impact on the world and others is to bring others to Jesus.

Like I said earlier, I am a planner and goalsetter. This goal of bringing others to Jesus, if I'm being completely honest, has really just seemed to begin to become really prevalent in my life, and I've felt a change that is undeniably Jesus working in my life.

As a side note, recently, I've become very interested in finance, especially while reading Benjamin Graham's incredible book, The Intelligent Investor. My goals as I became more interested in finance had realigned into essentially one large, but yet somewhat specific step: make money to serve Jesus. Working in finance could provide me with a very good opportunity to generate capital, which can act as a very useful tool to help serve Jesus in a way to bring Him into as many others' lives as possible.

I can say that this plan began to harden in my mind. It began to solidify in the fact that I felt that I knew I was doing something that really mattered—the one thing that really matters, which is bringing others to Jesus, as I established earlier. As I began to wrap my mind more and more around what seemed like this brilliant idea, something interesting seemed to occur.

When discussing this overall goal, I seemed to get upset, and I wasn't sure why. I couldn't explain how something like this amazing plan could make me feel like this. It didn't make sense to me. This seemed to all come out recently. I was discussing this with my mom and became more upset than I ever had while discussing the topic, though I still couldn't explain it. Then she said this statement, paraphrasing some of the words of Craig Groeschel: I was trying so hard to do God's plan that I forgot to include Him in it. I was planning an inapplicable plan when I didn’t recognize I was missing the most important piece!

It's impossible to love like Jesus when we try to love like Jesus without Him. It's impossible to love like Jesus when we try to love like Jesus without Him. This is exactly what happened to me. Proverbs 3:5-6 provides words that show what I did wrong, but also how to resolve the issues.

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

6 in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV

The first thing that I did wrong was that I had myself fooled that I thought I was trusting in the Lord with all my heart, when I was leaning on my own understanding entirely. This realization was the first step in my own journey, that is of course still going on in my life, to place my trust completely in His authority without any hesitation. The second issue was that I was not submitting to Him, therefore my paths were not straight, and my own planning does nothing when there is no end to the winding path.

There is a single resolution that encompasses both of these issues, and it’s the most important thing to remember: By fully submitting to Jesus we allow him to straighten the path—the path straight to Him. And that path is one where we can bring others with us, once we fully submit to His Will. Jesus has everything under control. We must put our lives under him as well.

I know that it can be very hard to trust. As I continue throughout my life, please help me to realize that this is out of my hands, but is in Your hands. I can do all of the planning in the world, even if it's a plan that seems like a road to serve you, but when we forget to involve you in it, it's impossible to live out your will. Help me to remember that it's impossible to love like Jesus when we try to love like Jesus without You. Help us to instead choose to put our complete trust in you, so that in our infinitely small lives we are able to affect people for infinity. Help me to submit in all my ways to You. Amen.

Works Cited

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "John Wallis". Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Nov. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Wallis. Accessed 13 January 2022.

Rucker, Rudy. "infinity". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Dec. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/science/infinity-mathematics. Accessed 13 January 2022.