A glimpse of the next three feet of road is more important and useful than a view of the horizon.
~C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
~ Very Good News from Ephesians 2
Oh beloved, the following is true. This fool of a writer has had the distinct privilege (and been given HIS abundant grace) to have lived (within one birth) many – very full – lives. i have been (and am still, due to the experiences) a student, a missionary, an engineer, a father, a teacher, a cook, a husband, a business owner, an IT guru, a mechanic, a writer, an athlete, a business owner, and many other things. My life has been such an adventure, that some are tempted to ask for additional references when they look at my Curriculum Vitae.
i have lived the life of an international business traveler, a home-bound father, a bed-bound sick man, a home-school teacher, a nine-to-fiver, a grave-yarder, and a free-lancer. And to my regret, i have even lived the life of a county jail inmate a few times due to some years of the problems of mixing alcohol with driving in the past.
One special season in my recent past was that of a single man, living a nearly monastic life of prayer and ministry of the Word. This time was a great privilege; it is one not generally afforded to an inhabitant of the modern world. And in this monastic world, G_d did fit this fool with a set of lapis-blue-sky colored mystical spectacles. And these spectacles had infinite and eternal focus as their primary setting. This was one of my favorite 18-month “moments” in my life. Everything about each of my 24 allotted hours per day was about Jesus. And some of the events that occurred during this time simply are not even useful to put into writing. Suffice it to say that He showed up in my life, and simply changed: EVERYTHING. The moment has not really ended – but it has shifted.
As He has brought me to Asia and brought a beautiful (but very needy) 6-year old orphan into my life – and me into his; my life is wall-to-wall brown boy, and his beautiful Filipina mom. And it is in this space that i am feeling the dynamic that Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians 7 regarding having my attentions divided between pleasing Him and pleasing a wife. It is a most beautiful tension – but a tension all the same.
And beyond this, He has chosen a path for me where my life is being poured out for a large number of people: family, friends, colleagues, church family, counselees and over 356 students across 15 worldview courses. More simply, there are simply a whole bunch of people to be loved, taught, corrected, helped, protected and provided for, all around me.Bluntly, the days of living nearly alone with Him are not the days i live in this moment. And there are days when this writer is tempted to think that he has dropped out of some sort of special moment with His True Lover and Friend.
Enter the lapis-blue-skied perspective He gave me, when i gave all myself to Him (oh-by-the-way beloved, have you?).
Everything means something.
Everything means something, and the things that don’t mean anything quickly become uninteresting to the mystic with an eternal focus.
So, yeah… i am back into helping little boys learn how not to wet their beds, teaching him to sing and ride bikes, and putting up shelves in kitchens, and teaching, and ministering, and doing lesson plans, and cooking meals, and running errands, and fixing broken whatevers. Does this mean my life has left some higher spiritual plane?
Can we see it? The spiritual in our lives is the superstructure of our physical existence. Spiritual is not only the very real and overflowing Joy we truly experience when alone in His presence. The spiritual is strength – born of that Joy – to do all the things we have been given to do in this fallen world; and to do them simply for Love of Him, and for Love of the people for whom we are doing the doing.
There is no separation, dear friends, between the mundane and the eternal. For, we are already in eternity. What we are doing now, does most profoundly, affect forever. Would that we all might live and walk down the paths of good works He has set before us. For they are the foundation work going into the Kingdom He is building and overseeing through us.
