We all long for significance, impact, bang-up effect. But when life seems to consist mostly of doing numerous small things, our felt worth can shrivel to the size of a pinhead.
In most lives, there seems to be no brilliant Aha! performance, just numerous connected instances of effort. We want to do important things, amass glorious achievements or at least earn a little notoriety, but at the end of the day the quest for limelight easily goes sour.
Our dreams of the spotlight yield a life in the dotlight, a closely-related but little-loved relative: The spotlight covers the stage; the dotlight covers today’s deadlines. The spotlight adds celebrity gloss; the dotlight reveals the cracks in the ceiling. The spotlight is the life you’ve always dreamed of; the dotlight involves vacuuming and taking out the trash.
I was recently thinking about this apparent downer, my relative contentment hijacked by an unlikely source: The kingdom of God. Strange, isn’t faith in the unseen God supposed to create peace in this visible world? Absolutely, but Christ’s approach, and the certainty of a final life-appraisal, undeniably ups the ante for living. The question goes from “How can I be content?”—which is difficult enough to answer—to “How can I not waste my life?” Suddenly the stakes are higher. A problem of mere self-absorption becomes a crisis of divine necessity. How can I please God?
I considered the fact that I haven’t done anything really scream-out-loud notable. I’ve lived a mildly interesting life. Done some search and rescue work. Read a lot of books, been fairly industrious. But by and large, my life so far has consisted of doing numerous small things fairly well. And at the two-and-a-half decade mark, I have to start contemplating the fact that this trajectory may continue.
Initially, I comforted myself by remembering that billions of people, including thousands if not millions of Christians, have lived completely unexceptional lives by any external standard. So the set in which I find myself is huge. It’s the world’s largest demographic, bigger than the “poor” or even the “proud,” since it incorporates both those groups. But is it good company? I’m not sure this is exactly strength in numbers. So what makes a life well-lived?
The relative pettiness of my life’s decisions had me hung up for awhile. I long for big choices—the one-and-done decision, act or resolution that could seal my cosmic significance. A Gettysburg speech. A new Confessions. A sacrificial rescue, an epic fight, a dangerous task, Mission Impossible meets Ben-Hur. Something I’d feel good about doing when Christ enters the room.
It didn’t take long to see I had to give this up. No one spends their life engaged in completely noble activity; and if they did, they would do some part of it ignobly. No, eternal value doesn’t rise from Oxford lectureships or purple hearts or great theological writing.
It struck me that Christ’s life, with the exception of three world-shaking, epoch-making years, was largely unremarkable. Long hours spent in the sun, cutting wood, wiping sweat from his eyes, laboring to learn Hebrew in his free moments. Three decades of strenuous living led to three years of brilliant teaching and a horrific death. The answer, however, is there.
Christ did what he was told and never claimed to do more. He followed his father’s directives and was content. God instructed Christ through thirty obscure years, through three spotlight years, through death and back to unmatched glory. One day Jesus was a nobody, the next he was a revolutionary, a few days more, the victim of the mob. But the motive force for Christ’s contentment did not change:Jesus said, "The food that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me, finishing the work he started.” (John 4:34).
Not glamorous, maybe, but this source of meaning is immovable. Bling-bling makes room for Untouchable. This is significance, to be doing what God wants me to be doing. And that's where I'll let it rest.
The paper-writing student and the Pulitzer winner have one thing in common. Likewise the lawn-mowing youngster and the multi-platinum rock star. They’re both wasting their lives if God didn’t lead them to do it.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Life in the Dotlight
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7 comments:
This is the issue that haunts every person, the quest for significance. As I have struggled with this issue I received a great comfort when I realized that men like Abraham and Moses had years of preparation before they made their mark for God. I think we often grow impatient, and rather than faithfully living out the things we know God has called us to do (even though they seem insignificant) we begin to doubt whether or not we are where God wants us. By remaining faithful we will arrive one day at that moment when it will be our time in the spotlight. I have only heard Erwin McManus preach once, but in that sermon he said something that has stuck with me. "If you go for the right reasons God will get you to the right place." It may not be in the way we would like, but sooner or later what we do will count for something.
Right on, Arie. At times I question who I am and what I do because it doesn't seem epic enough. Did Christ during those 30 or so years as a non-world-breaker? Maybe there was a significance I don't understand . . . maybe there is a deeper meaning and contentment in tasks as day-to-day as carving out a bachelor's degree.
//David
i've been struggling with this too. how do i handle the tedium of everyday life with grace? how do i not get bored? how do i keep up my work ethic everyday when my work seems so insignificant some days? how do i not constantly wonder what else is out there? -grass is greener, and all that.
your post reminds me that, everything i struggle with -everything, Jesus has already taken upon Himself. i still don't really know what it all means somedays...but it is comforting to know that He has been here.
Love the picture of the moon behind the branches.
I've been behind on blogging this week, due to my "sudden immersion" Summer class, but I've enjoyed the comments.
Each of you pointed up facets of this question: How to live "epically" in a commonplace life? I'm not sure I have much to add. I might say one thing, though.
"Are you convinced/assured that you are in the place God called you, doing the things...that He ordered for your life?"
Because we have a God who speaks to us, doing his will is not a great mystery. With few exceptions, we can please God wherever we are, working at whatever we do. I'm relieved to realize that if my goal is to pursue God's plan, God won't let me wander off-track. As Eugene Peterson puts it (borrowing Nietzsche's phrase) the heart of pleasing God is "a long obedience in the same direction."
An epic life is an defiantly obedient one.
The book: A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.
Yes... working quietly with perseverence is the imitation of Christ! Have you read any of the writings of St Josemaria Escriva? He often wrote about what these "hidden years" of Christ's life can teach us. Here is one quotation:
"Our Lord's whole life fills me with love for him, but I have a special weakness for his thirty hidden years spent in Bethlehem, Egypt and Nazareth. That period, so long in comparison with his public life and which the Gospels hardly mention, might seem empty of any special meaning to a person who views it superficially. And yet, I have always maintained that this silence about Our Lord's early life speaks eloquently for itself, and contains a wonderful lesson for us Christians. They were years of intense work and prayer, years during which Jesus led an ordinary life, a life like ours, we might say, which was both divine and human at the same time. In his simple workshop, unnoticed, he did everything to perfection, just as he was later to do before the multitudes."
This comes from a collection of homilies called Friends of God, paragraph 56. You can find many of his writings online at www.escrivaworks.org.
FYI - I found your blog due to your recent post about G.K. Chesterton!
Regards,
Joe @ On Nothing
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