Life’s too short.
This last month has been a rollercoaster of emotions. Early one morning I received a phone call from my father. He told me that my mother’s recent routine surgical procedure had gone wrong. She was back in the hospital, waiting for a second surgery, more invasive, more corrective, and surely (although he didn’t say it) more dangerous.
It’s amazing how we as father’s intuitively downplay our own concerns for our children. Its a strength we don’t always recognize as children. I watched my father as he told me Mom was going to be fine and the doctors felt confident they would be able to repair the damage. I in turn gave the same brave face to my children when I told them about their grandmother’s surgery. I saw in their faces the same concern and worry and fear.
Five days later Mom was out of the hospital, back home and resting. My prayers breathed a sigh of relief, but the air was pregnant with an electricity I didn’t want to miss as life went back to normal. All the mundane tasks were calling me back for full attention, instead of the half-heart focus I’d given them the past few weeks; all those things that once seemed so important until something truly meaningful called for my attention.
Life is too short. The months, weeks and days from cradle to grave are summed up in a small dash between dates. How many stone markers and wooden crosses are there that sum up the highs and lows, triumphs and tragedies and everything in between with a short line. Life stories swallowed up in a linear void. And how many of those dashes are too short for cause of human striving?
Each person will have a different response to these life moments, these times that bring definition in the blur. Some will be crushed by the weight of painful possibilities. Others will bury themselves more deeply in distraction, work or play, to keep their minds occupied. Ultimately, like Jacob, they will all come to the same place where they must wrestle out the meaning of life and purpose (Genesis 32).
Wrestling Out Purpose
Jacob had worked hard. He’d carved out a wealth of his own, a life made up of success in the face of corruption, a nuclear family of his own filled with children. Finally, Jacob was able to shake free from his father-in-law, and set out to define his own life apart from Laban’s tricks.
But the farther from Laban he went the closer to Esau he got. Unresolved fear began to mount as he remembered how things were left with his brother. Jacob was distressed. Every dune they crossed and every wadi they passed brought them closer to Canaan and possible disaster. The days slowed to hours under the hot traveler’s sun.
Everything that Jacob had put his life into, all his hard work could go up in smoke. Not only that, but the people he loved the most were in danger. There on the banks of the Jabbok, God met with Jacob.
How often we sugar coat our encounters with God. We look for the transfigurations, the visions of God’s divine glory, while God is ready to meet us in our pain, in the darkest places in our soul. We’re so busy looking for rainbows we don’t see the body slam he’s bringing. We’re so hungry for our own success we can’t even smell what the Rock is cooking. All we want is a blessing but God wants to transform us.
All his life Jacob has been wrestling with everybody (Esau, Isaac, and Laban), trying to squeeze out meaning and purpose, against others. Jacob was living out the meaning of his name, grabbing at God’s heels, demanding a blessing for his benefit, a prize for his purpose. What more could we ask for?
The Tyranny of Self
Like Jacob we strive and struggle against one another, elevating our needs above all others. And this seems only right as we are uniquely aware of our needs. As altruistic as Jacob was in fearing for his family, giving his best efforts to protect them against Esau, he was still allowing a dangerous humanistic mindset to determine his behavior and rewrite his purpose.
In this current climate it seems appropriate to remember the Greek classics Sophocles deftly translated by Seamus Heaney: wrote “all of us would like to have been born infallible, but since we know we weren’t, it’s better to attend to those who speak in honesty and good faith, and learn from them.”
As wise as these words are they lift our eyes no higher than to other fallible people. It is a dangerous time when we put our hopes and dreams of a world renewed and a life transformed in the small hands of men and women. Whether we call it tribalism, xenophobia or a host of other names, the elevation of ‘me' and ‘mine’ will never produce the lasting purpose we want to define our lives. At best we can hope to become little dictators of our own individual democracies where our word is law and our rule irrefutable.
A Life of Pregnant Time
But life’s too short for that. Our lives have been built for too much meaning and beauty to be squandered on our vanities. Our lives are pregnant with purpose if we can only stop wrestling with one another and start wrestling with God.
When we stop fighting other image bearers and turn our eyes toward Jesus we find ourselves with a new name in a renewed purpose. No setbacks or struggles can overcome us. In Jesus, we shift from a life of clock-watching and score-keeping to a life of intentional worship.
Consider the life of Paul. Paul’s purpose and meaning were all bound up in a pregnant approach to life. Repeatedly Paul called for God’s people to shift their thinking, to change their focus, to rewrite their mindsets. Paul encouraged the Galatians to re-orient their lives toward Christ, watching for the rich opportunities to serve and bless others (Galatians 6.10). He challenged the Ephesians to redeem the time in the face of evil (Ephesians 5:16).
Our lives as Jesus’ people should be marked by a belief that any time we are wrestling out the purpose of God for our lives are moments pregnant with possibility. Paul calls us from our common complacency to walk in wisdom. As we walk before a corrupt world, redeeming the time as we graciously share the good news of Jesus Christ (Colossians 4.5-6).
In the end, life’s too short to spend it fighting the wrong battles and skirmishing on the wrong shores. In the coming days, let’s climb out of the trenches, season our language with salt, and love others as we fix our eyes on Jesus. Life’s too short to wrestle with anyone but God.
the uptick of time
One by one people trickled in. Two by two they filled the rows and by the third song, lifted with swells of drums and voices, our small rented space was packed to capacity. Men, women and children pressed together to celebrate our church’s anniversary. The room overflowed to the point where all the children had to go up onto the roof to make room for everyone. Even still, members of our church gave up their seats to guests and sat in our courtyard singing in through the windows.
One year ago our small band of believers were gathered together on the top floor of a hotel. Now, located in the heart of Parcelles Assainies, we are seeing our church building filled to capacity on these celebration days.
Each celebration, every Christmas service and Easter morning, our church grows. Every anniversary and Pentecost our church reaches further into the community. Birthdays and anniversaries, holidays and festivals are important because they help us mark the passage of time.
We so easily lose ourselves in time. The mundane tasks drone from one day to the next. The months and years slip away. If we don’t stop to celebrate victories, great and small, we disillusion ourselves of our purpose and God’s glory. The grandeur of time and space can disjoint us from reality. The contemplation of eternity can give us headaches. Celebrations help us ground the steady uptick of time toward eternity.
This is nothing new. Our Creator, fully aware of our finite limitations, calls us to celebration and worship. In Numbers 28 the Lord lays out for Moses an anchor for the people as the waves of time wash by. Daily offerings rose up to the Lord like a pleasing aroma. A Sabbath day each week was set apart from the rest. Every month ushered in a new opportunity to glory in the presence of God, as the phases of the moon reflected the passage of time. And as each month brought closer a new year, a series of festivals were established to bring the people of God together in worship and celebration.
The new generation of God’s people were standing before Moses. Their numbers were fully counted. They were equipped with the direction to the promised land and how to rightly divide the land (Num. 26). And Joshua, their next leader was standing before them ready to lead the conquest (Num. 27). But chapter 28 isn’t about the next strategy to occupy the land. Chapter 28 isn’t the work of conquest. Chapter 28 is about celebration and worship.
We are preparing the church of Parcelles Assainies for a future that endures the good times and bad, the seasons of struggle and success. We are equipping them with the wisdom to celebrate in all the victories God brings our way, great or small, so that whether in hundreds or in ones, we are redeeming the time as we journey toward eternity (Eph. 5.16).