HOW ridiculous it would be to hire an expensive architect to formulate plans and a design for a church building and then to follow the consensus of those doing the building and ignore the blueprints that have taken so much time, effort, and expense to draw up. Yet one doesn't have to be involved in church structure too long to recognize that we are so often following the everchanging plans of well-meaning but short-sighted men rather than the design given us by the Omniscient Architect.
Probably all who read this have at some time or other experienced the frustration of trying to get some church organization or institution to follow the divinely given blueprint more closely. For some strange reason, even with like-minded individuals dedicated to such an attempt, it seems difficult to change long-established practices that obviously have deviated from the clearly spelled-out design that God gave His church.
For some time I've been trying to analyze this problem and come up with a solution that would help us get back to the blueprint. I've talked to many individual workers who have a real concern about this same problem and have experienced in one way or another the same kind of frustrations I have.
It would be easy to become discouraged, critical, and cynical about the whole program, and about us are many who have done so. But there is a solution. There is something we can do. We may not be able to do much about changing the practice of the whole denomination overnight, however there's one segment of denominational practice that we can effectively deal with and drastically change. That is ourselves. God has a blueprint and a design for each one of us and has just as clearly drawn this out for us as He has outlined His plan for our medical and educational institutions. We might call this a "you-print." Perhaps the key to bringing our church back to the divine design is not to try to change the institutions overnight, but to bring ourselves into line with His "you-print."
This, as I'm finding out from personal attempts to come into line, can also be a frustrating task, but it's one that He promises to enable us to accomplish if we'll cooperate with the daily prodding and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Rather than trying to do everything all at once, it's better, I believe, to accomplish this cooperation bit by bit and step by step.
We're overwhelmed when we look at the whole you-print at one time. So perhaps it's better to concentrate on only one portion at a time. If you were asked to make a selection of the Spirit of Prophecy books that would be the most effective to use in beginning such a program, which would you choose?
I've chosen Steps to Christ and The Ministry of Healing. I plan to read these books over and over until I'm sure that God has enabled me to put into practice all that He desires me to learn from this part of His you-print. At the rate I'm going in making applications, it will take a long, long time before I have to find other selections to work on.
Do you agree that this is the most effective way to deal with the frustration of bringing our church into line with the divine design? If so, how about joining me in following the you-print? Maybe if enough of us become involved in doing so we'll find the whole structure suddenly coming into line!