The "Synergicity Bands" (Seeing God's Hand in Daily Life)
By Richard Eyre

Editor's note: During the "first half" of this column, Richard outlined and defined “The Three Deceivers” of Control, Ownership, and Independence, and detailed how our obsessions with them can ruin the quality of our lives. If you missed any of the earlier columns in this series, you can go to the Deceivers Archive (see right sidebar) to catch up. Then, in the the second phase of the column, he replaced the deceivers with "The Three Alternatives" of SERENDIPITY, STEWARDSHIP, and "SYNERGICITY" (again, see archives). The column will end two weeks from today Send comments to Richard@meridianmagazine.com.

Column Housekeeping and Final Schedule

A few weeks ago, we outlined the concluding columns as follows:

I stayed with this schedule until Dec. 21, when I could not resist a Christmas message and Dec. 28 (last week), when I decided to challenge you to a Serendipity- and Stewardship-oriented New Year's resolution (see archives click to the right if you missed either of these columns.)

So, because of those two delays, there are still three columns to go. Today's is on the "Synergicity Bands" and is, I think, one of the most important installments. Next week's column will be on the ultimate method, and the concluding column, on Jan. 18 (the day we leave for a lengthy speaking tour of Australia and China) will discuss the possibility of getting all 50 columns along with some additional information into a book called, The Three Deceivers, How Our Obsessions with Control, Ownership, and Independence are Destroying the Quality of Our Lives. (Let me hear from you if you think you might want a book, Richard@meridianmagazine.com.)

The One-Week Synergicity Exercise

Since it's been a while, let's repeat our definition of Synergicity, the alternative to "Independence."

Sounds good, doesn't it? And it is certainly in line with Elder Eyring's advice to try to see God's hand in our lives daily. But how to do that? How to get into that kind of habit, and that kind of thinking? How to "change our minds" so that they work in a more spiritual plane?

The good habit that has worked for me is something I call the Synergicity Bands. It is a regimented way to discipline yourself to asking for and looking for God's hand each day (in fact three times each day). Like the Serendipity Line habit and the Stewardship Blanks habit discussed earlier, this habit requires a written planning and scheduling page each day. If you follow the practice outlined below for 21 days, it will become a "good addiction" — something you enjoy or benefit enough from that it can be called a habit.

Get started by drawing three horizontal bands across your daily planning page. Draw them with a highlighter, so that you can write in them, and put one at the top of the page, one in the middle, and one at the bottom. The bands have two purposes:

Implementing this habit, of course, involved two very substantial challenges. First, you have got to remember to pray three times. If you are like me, your bedtime prayer is usually the most predictable, but praying in the morning, in the busyness of getting up and meeting commitments, is sometimes difficult to remember, and praying at some point in the middle of the day often does not occur to us unless we have some special need (or unless we are trying to develop this habit and are reminded by the Synergicity Band at the middle of our planning page).

Second, you have to look hard for both the large and small ways that God's hand comes into play in your daily life. Since we are dependent on God for all — for every breath — for every aspect of life, it should be easy to notice His hand three times a day, but most of us are not in the habit of thinking this way or of trying to notice God's hand consistently. The Synergicity Bands are there to remind us to look and to notice and to acknowledge.

Often these two challenges will work together. As you pray, you will become aware of a blessing or an answer or a prompting and you can write it in that band as your acknowledgment of God's hand. And often, as you see something that reminds you of God, whether it is a beautiful sunset or a simple smile from a friend, it will prompt you to a brief prayer of thanks, even as you write it in your band.

So — that is the challenge. I call it a "one-week habit" because I am hoping you will focus hard on it during the week ahead, between now and the next column. But, as I said earlier, most people find that they have to do it for 21 days, or three weeks, before it really becomes a set and paradigm-changing habit.

May it change your life for the better (or make you more aware of how God changes your life for the better every day.)