Realizing makes things matter

I’m in the process of writing a beast of a post on how to realize. In the meantime, though, I thought I’d throw something out here for you to consider.

[Warning: this is going to start off all philosophical on you. I’ll get practical in a second, though – please stick with me.]

Most truth doesn’t matter.

I mean, it might matter to someone, perhaps even Chloe in the next cubical over, but it doesn’t matter to you.

Take our good friend Pluto, the unofficial planet, again. Whatever truth you know about Pluto probably doesn’t matter to you. If you’re keen on outer space, you might have a slight interest in some of the facts, but in general you seriously don’t care.

But then suddenly, you’re at a party, and – like all good parties – you’re playing some kind of trivia game when lo and behold, you’re asked some dang question about Pluto.

Ahhhhh, you wish Pluto had mattered to you the other day during that TV special.

Which leads us to…

The Realizing Formula

Where X is anything…

Realizing X = making X matter

You didn’t care about Pluto when it was just some truth out there in outer space. But suddenly you care when your trivia reputation is on the line.

When it’s “just some truth,” it has no meaning and therefore doesn’t matter, but when it relates to you, it suddenly does have meaning and therefore does matter to you.

That’s what realizing does. It makes things matter.

The practical side of realizing

In serving others, how often does this come up? How often do we try to help someone care about something they don’t care about? How often are we stuck trying to show our friends why something matters?

For me, it’s all the time. Whether it’s a restaurant I’m recommending or financial advice they should take or any number of other things, I’m almost constantly trying to help someone see why something matters.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” -John 3:16

I’m like, “Dude, you’ve got to get this. Don’t you see why this matters? Don’t you see how this could change your life?”

Because, seriously, physical serving only goes so far. The real heart of serving lies in serving spiritually, and most often that involves helping them realize how meaningful something really is.

There’s so much truth out there that has no meaning to people. They can probably ignore most of it, like the truth about Pluto. But some of it is totally crucial, like God and salvation and heaven and hell.

That’s the benefit of realizing, and that’s why I’m writing this massive article to explain more about how to do it… because realizing is how you and I put meaning into truth.

Serving Suggestions:

(1) I want you to write down one thing that you’ve wanted someone to realize. It doesn’t have to be earth-changing – just something you know should be meaningful to them. We’re going to use this in the next post.

(2) In the past, how have you helped people realize things? Whether what you tried worked or not, share what you’ve tried to help someone see the meaning behind something you knew was important.