Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Cubing (October 10, 2021)

Are you familiar with a 3x3x3 puzzle?  Or how about cubing?  Speedcubing? 

Not ringing a bell just yet?


How about Ernõ Rubik?  


The Rubik’s Cube?


With over 450 million cubes sold since its invention in 1974, the Rubik’s Cube is a well-known, often loved (often hated), iconic puzzle.  Simple looking yet incredibly difficult to solve the Rubik’s Cube has challenged and frustrated millions of people for over 40 years.  What started as an object lesson for architecture students turned into a mind bending challenge for young and old alike.  Who would have guessed that this cube, once deemed to be unsolvable, would produce the likes of Yusheng Du (the current world record holder, solving a cube in 3.47 seconds)?  Or a robot that solved it in 0.38 seconds?


The Rubik’s Cube and those who solve it truly are remarkable.


Now, let’s be clear.  I’m no Rubik’s Cube expert.  (The majority of the above information came from the Rubik’s Cube website and a quick google search on how many have been sold.)  In all honesty, I can only remember solving a Rubik’s Cube a handful of times in my youth…and that was with a book that told me how to do it…and it took quite some time.  I wasn’t even in the same county as Mr. Du let alone the same ballpark.  It has never been one of my strengths; however, it has recently become one of Silas’s.  Within the last couple of weeks Silas has taken up the idea of solving the Rubik’s Cube.  In fact, he has watched some videos, memorized some different approaches, learned some algorithms, and he can solve them.  It’s very impressive.  Hand him a cube all mixed up, and he will hand it back to you solved…without a book, without referring to a video again.  He knows enough to solve it, and it is awesome.  Not only that, but he has set a personal best of a little over a minute.  He may never go to world record speed (honestly…I don’t want for him to do that.  It takes an insane amount of time and dedication), but we are proud of him, and it has gotten me to think about the Rubik’s Cube once again.  


To me, I find them fascinating.  The Rubik’s Cube is a unique combination of simplicity and complexity.  Simple idea.  Six colors.  Six sides.  Make the colors match.  Complex solution.  How do I move the pieces around to get them to line back up correctly?  This is especially challenging when you consider that there are 43 quintillion (that’s 43 with 18 zeros after it) possible configurations.  (Just as an aside…any cube can be solved with at most 20 moves.  20!  It took 30 years, a group of mathematicians, and some supercomputers to figure this out, but if you make every move perfectly, that is the most that you would take for any of those 43 quintillion possibilities.)


Yep!  The Rubik’s Cube is pretty neat, but I realize that I’ve reached a point in the devotional where your personal interest in these things might be waning, and you are wondering what might be the point of all of this.  Hopefully I will get to said point within 20 moves.  (Get it?)


Here’s where I’m headed for today…


Whenever I was guided through solving a Rubik’s cube, it typically started with solving one side.  This was something that I could do on my own, and then the guide would pick up from there.  I would solve the white side, and then the book would tell me how to do the rest.


The problem?


Solving the remainder of the cube always involved “messing up” the side that had been solved.  There was never a way to move the unsolved portions of the cube around while keeping the “solved” side intact.  You always, always had to move the solved side around.


In my own, unguided attempts, this was never a maneuver that I wanted to do.  Instead, I had the attitude “I solved the white!  Why can’t I keep it solved and get the rest in place?”  (Or why can’t I just pull the stickers off and just put them back to where they belong?)  I never wanted to go “backwards.”  I never wanted to mess up what I had started.  Forward progress was all that I wanted to make, but this was impossible…at least if I wanted to move beyond just solving one side.


Life sometimes is like that too.  If we go about solving all of our own problems, looking for solutions with the hopes of getting our lives “in order”, we can only get so far.  Sure, we might get one aspect lined up.  Maybe we will solve the yellow side and have it looking great.  But we will never be able to solve the whole cube that way.  We will never be able to align all of the different aspects of our life or get it all put together.  In fact, sometimes (or perhaps most of the time), true solving will require some steps that might seem to be in the wrong direction at the time that we are taking them.


Paul was a person who worked hard to achieve things.  If life were a Rubik’s Cube, Paul worked hard to solve it.  In fact, he worked so hard that he had a side or two solved (or at least he thought that he did).  


Check out this self-description that Paul gives in his letter to the Philippians:


If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:  circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;  as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

~Philippians 3:4-6  


He had done it.  He had solved a side.  He had lived a life that was strict, regimented, dedicated to all of the “right” things.  Circumcised at just the right time.  Born from just the right family.  Passionate about the law, the rule of God as he understood it.  Willing to snuff out any type of opposition, even to the point of persecuting those who would believe something outside of what was acceptable.  In his estimation, Paul was “faultless” in regards to righteousness based on the law.  


However, that was not enough.  That was not sufficient.  In fact, solving the cube required that what Paul had built up be torn down.


Paul says this in verse 7:


But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 

~Philippians 3:7


The “victories”, the “successes”, his ability to solve a side of the Rubik’s cube were now not so important.  Once Jesus entered into Paul’s life, everything changed.  No longer was he pursuing righteousness on his own power, according to his own strength.  What he had considered to be “gains” previously, were now considered to be losses.


He continues:


What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

~Philippians 3:8-9


Paul’s previous efforts?  His righteousness?  His birthright?  Relying on his circumcision?  All garbage.  Trash.  Christ was so far superior that he was willing to throw away anything else.  He only wanted that which was used by Jesus in building him up.  Paul was ready to have the aligned side of the cube that he had solved completely scrambled in order that the large picture might come together in his life.  Did Jesus want to mess up the white side that he had worked so long in solving?  No problem!  Twist and turn away!  Just get me closer to you, Jesus.


Sometimes in our lives we will have things that we think are “solved,” maybe this is a particular attitude, maybe this is a way of doing things, maybe this is the thought that we can make it on our own good, our own righteousness.  Then, we meet Jesus, and he seems to turn everything around.  He keeps twisting and turning and moving things around in our lives so that we can begin to wonder…is this working?  Am I moving towards a solution?  Is my life progressing?  Initially, we may even think, “No!!!!  I had that side solved!  Can’t we just move the other things?  Can’t we just remove some stickers and place them in the right spots?  Isn’t there another way?”

My prayer, friend, is that we will learn to trust Jesus, that we would learn that there is immeasurable satisfaction to be found in Christ that will not be found anywhere else.  My prayer, friend, is that we would trust that Jesus knows how to “cube”, he knows how to solve, he is an expert in cubing.


So, here’s my question, here’s my challenge.  Are you ready to begin (or continue) to submit your life into the hands of Christ?  Even if it feels like he is “messing it all up”, even if it feels like he is twisting and turning you about, even if you like how you had done things in the past?  After all, Jesus is the Master at solving life’s problems and guiding us to where we need to be.  Though it may not be “world record time”, we can trust that God will move us in just the right way at just the right time so that all of our sides are perfectly aligned in his plan.


~ Pastor Chris