·
Policy
frameworks and institutions
·
Technical
savoir faire
·
Management/financial
systems
·
Education/training
·
Budgetary
and commodity support
·
Collaborations
with other donor projects and programs
·
Complex
monitoring and evaluation systems
·
Extensive
reporting protocols
The designs of these
various program aspects were carefully integrated, collaboratively developed with
host nationals and other donor agencies, and supported by comprehensive,
long-term strategies and, of course, the latest-greatest logic models available.
In spite of such
elaborate supply networks; typically, the highest level of potentially
sustainable results was as elusive as our quest was ubiquitous! Often
unanticipated factors easily prevented, reduced or wiped out gains (e.g.,
cultural shifts, wars, politics, corruption, diseases, poor designs, weak
implementation, leadership changes, etc.).
This is reflective
of life across our world, with concerns about:
·
'Where the rubber meets the road’
·
‘The last link in the chain’
·
‘The arc that sparks’
·
The
challenging ‘So what?!’ question
·
The
pivotal, last connection linkage
·
The
clear purpose and meaning of life
Irrespective of our
best efforts, that last, critical connection is either not achieved at all, or
as well and sustainably as anticipated. King Solomon wrestled with this ‘supply network - last connection - so what’
conundrum, and concluded:
All our toil under the sun is circuitous
vanity –
grasping for the wind!
(Ecclesiastes)
I used to discount
Solomon’s (paraphrased) expression as being based on the carnally minded
thinking of a king who was apparently not walking with God during the latter
part of his life as he had done as a young king. Upon reflection, I conclude he
is spot on! Here’s why.
God commissioned us
to ‘subdue the earth’, and He also instructed
us to, ‘Trust Me!’ He gifts us with
skills to construct and connect elaborate supply networks to address problems
and create opportunities across our world, much like you and I do in our
careers. We have done a pretty good job thus far. Yet, if we could perfectly
make and sustain that last, pivotal connection every time, we would have no need to trust or even believe in God. I doubt His commission meant for
us to engineer Him out of our lives. Given our inherent proclivities to be our
own gods, we naturally resist His instruction to ‘Trust Me’. So we plod on, grasping for the wind, as Solomon so
aptly put it.
Undoubtedly, we are
wind-graspers! How and why? In
essence, we are wind….spirit, unlimited and insatiable, made in the
very image (spiritual, soulish and physical) of our unlimited and eternal God. He,
too, is wind, and has fashioned us so that only His wind – His Spirit, will satisfy us at the deepest, most intimate and
imaginable level. Though shaped to grasp Him/His wind, we have rather designed
life to grasp for physical things, i.e., vanities
that can only satisfy at the surface-level. This is what Solomon did -- the
richest man in the known world of his day. His conclusion echoes loudly in
practically everything in our world today – vanity,
all is vanity, chasing after the wind!’
King David apparently
discovered the answer to the conundrum his son, Solomon, wrestled with. David
wrote:
As the deer pants for the
water brooks,
so pants my soul for You, O God.
Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls.
(Psalm 42:1, 7)
so pants my soul for You, O God.
Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls.
(Psalm 42:1, 7)
From deep within
his spirit, David learned to perceive and draw from the depths of God’s
spiritual treasures. In response, God blessed him materially and meaningfully
because David had his priorities right about Whom he was chasing. Without this
perception and drawing, Solomon, who was wealthier than his father, ended up chasing
material things in the most un-meaningful
manner. As a result, he struggled to make that final, pivotal and sustainable
connection to meaningfulness in life.
Yes, by divine
design, we are wind-graspers and wind-catchers! The key question is:
After which or Whose wind are you grasping to satisfy
deeply
…the wind that you, in
essence, are?
