The Tangent Phenomenon

This weekend, God taught me about The Tangent Phenomenon, which is the opposite of the Cosine Phenomenon. The principle behind both phenomena is necessary maintenance.

An example of necessary maintenance is my manicures. Although my fingernails were painted, the colour starts receding from the edges after a few days because of wear and tear. To prevent this, I read that one has to apply a topcoat every 2 days. But get real, who has the time to do this?? So this explains my receding nail colour. Thank God it’s not my hairline! Anyhow, manicures can only stay pretty with regular maintenance. Without this necessary maintenance, they will be destroyed – no repairwork can bring it back, and you have to clean everything off and start over.

So the principle of necessary maintenance is that (a) regular maintenance is necessary, or else (b) you have to start your efforts all over again.

In our relationship with God, the necessary maintenance is prayer – time spent with God. If the principle of necessary maintenance is not kept to, every Sunday is just a cleaning of the slate and starting anew. While cleansing and renewing are important, we would not be able to grow from strengths to strength, or to be transformed from glory to glory – because every encounter with Him is merely cleaning out the dirt. Our relationship with God holds so much more potential!

A life without daily prayer (or necessary maintenance) is what I call The Cosine Phenomenon (see graph below):

One keeps experiencing highs (“I’m ok with God now, coz I’ve cleaned out the dirt!”) and lows (“Oh dear, I really haven’t sought God, and I need to do that now) in a never-ending cycle. In other words, one never leaves the rut (vertical axis values between -1 and 1).

However, with daily prayer (regular and necessary maintenance) – and one can pray many times a day; in fact one should be praying throughout the day – one’s life displays The Tangent Phenomenon:

This is the only way to get out of the rut (exceeding the value of 1 on the vertical axis). We reflect His glory and become transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory (going into the value of infinity on the vertical axis). And that’s His desire for us.

May we all display The Tangent Phenomenon.