And all your money, won’t another minute buy.
~ Kansas, Dust in The Wind
We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity…. I learned a long time ago that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.
~Chaim Potok (1929- )
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” And He said, “Go, and say to this people:
“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
and the Lord removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.
~ from Isaiah 6
Oh beloved, it is true. There is a futility in the work we do. No one wants to listen. And so few care. We follow the path He has set before us, and in our own silly and foolish futility, we think that we are going to make a difference.
Foolish.
And the futility of our march along the path begins to grind against our feelings. We are raw. And hurt. Even the dog, barking across the way, puts acid in our stomach. And the normal acting up of a 6 year-old in the house makes us feel crazy. Even the work we do of sharing love and the Good News of the Gospel is mocked as people in the audience laugh and giggle about other silly and superfluous things.
Futile.
And further, the people we are teaching and discipling know how to give us the right answers. But the moment they put down their pens and walk out of the room, they return to their regularly scheduled diet of foul media and devouring each other in some sort of psuedo-vicarious playing out of the dystopia in which we live.
Failure.
No one cares. Each has gone their own way. And to even stand up for the truth is seen as behavior so out of place as to be rejected, in itself, as immoral. Right has become wrong, and wrong is the norm. We begin to feel as though anything we do in the Great Commission is but a drop of water in an endless sea.
Desolation.
And then, though, in the choking haze of the dust of this world, a student, or acquaintance, or friend, or even a family member will reach out and ask for help. Sometimes they don’t even do it with words, but there is a wide-eyed wishing to believe the Truth we have to share with them. Their own lives are so desolate and painful, that they begin to believe that the crazy prophet in front of them might just be right.
The seed that used to abide alone has fallen into the ground.
And then again, some of those (who at first made us feel irrelevant) awake to the glorious mystery before them. They find that they are incredibly and astoundingly Loved by both the fool in front of them, and the G_d at work within that same fool. And in a miracle even more astounding, in just one more breath of His Spirit, they are revived. That which was alive in them dies, and that which was dead becomes alive forever.
Germination.
Can we see it? That one is just one out of billions. But the loving and saving of that one matters forever. That one is of infinite value. Then, in a miracle that is so much like Him, the seed (me) that was but one, has now become two. And while the beginnings of hyperbolic growth curves look pretty flat, they do not remain that way for long.
Growth.
Soon, the irrelevance of a few becomes the impact of thousands and even million, and then billions. The tiny drops in the sea become a sea-change. The particles of dust form into a storm which sweeps across the plains of people’s lives. Kingdom math is weird, but it is real.
So beloved, are you feeling the futility of your calling? Good. Seeds are not meant to look like trees. They are meant to die. Join this fool of a writer in going on down into the earth. Surely, we will emerge as the oaks of righteousness He plans for us to be – but it will take time. Until then, let us let Him grow us. For only G_d knows the fruit contained in a single seed.
Life can never be wholly dark or wholly futile once the key to its meaning is in our hands.
~J. B. Phillips (1906-1982)
