A couple weeks ago, a young woman asked me, "what is your purpose?" it kind of threw me off. Ok, it really threw me off. It seemed a bit touché to say "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever" when she was looking for specifics. And I get why she's asking. My life does seem pretty random. Thirty-two years old, working on my BA, teaching music part time, working at a coffee shop part time, and living at least an hour from my closest family member. On paper it looks...well...it looks random. I get it. Kind of hard to pull a purpose out of the randomness.
I was talking to the Lord about it because sometimes, even for myself, the person living this life, it's hard to find a specific purpose in the randomness. Sometimes I wonder, when I get to Heaven if I'm going to have anything to offer God, if while other people show up with their kids, I'm going to hold out empty hands and say "it's just me." I mean, if He wants soldiers to defeat spiritual strong holds and make war on the Kingdom of Darkness, my life doesn't look like much.
On paper.
But God doesn't work the way we think. There are lots of examples of how He's worked things out when on paper they seemed hopeless; Gideon and his 300 men defeating the Midianites, water from a rock, a virgin carrying the Salvation of the World. God views things differently than we do. We need to remember that He has a plan and it is a good one, even if it doesn't make a ton of sense to us, His tiny-minded little image bearers. That's okay. Nowhere does He command us to sort everything out. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed belong to us and to our children" (Deuteronomy 29:29). It is not for us to delve into the things that are not revealed. For example, I don't specifically know how heavenly treasure actually works. I know Jesus blesses whoever gives a cup of cold water in His name (a little thing) and if we've loved the least we've loved Him (another little thing) and that faith the size of a mustard seed moves mountains (another little thing), so maybe heavenly treasure is accumulated through a million small obediences and sacrifices.
Maybe, when we get to heaven, we're going to discover the people with the most treasure are the ones who lived ordinary, random lives, who prayed and walked with God and loved their neighbours.
I've been reading Feminine Threads by Diana Lynn Severance before bed. It's a book on women in church history, very accessible to read but not captivating like a novel. Right now I'm reading about God's daughters from the late Middle Ages, and this description of Margaret of Scotland struck me. "In her roles as wife, mother, and queen, Margaret was able to let the light of the gospel of Christ shine throughout Scotland." If someone took three pages to write my life story, could they write the same? "In her roles as friend, aunt, music teacher, and barista, R.D. was able to let the light of Christ shine in her city." I hope so.
In the end, that's all the matters, isn't it? Loving the Lord our God with all our heart and sharing His love with this dying world? When we get to Heaven, I don't think the places we shared the light in will matter too much, whether it was on our playroom floor or in an office or walking around our neighbourhood or frothing milk for a latte, it will just matter that wherever we lived, we lived for God.
There is no greater purpose.
What I'm Reading Lately
- Feminine Threads by Diana Lynn Severance. Honestly, I can't recommend this one enough. It is informative, interesting, and well written.
- We just finished The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie for book club. If you're looking for something clean and interesting, this fits the bill.
- This week I also finished The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy
- And I finished Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass for school.
- I'm also 3/4ths of the way done Being Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn. We read Becoming Elizabeth Elliot for book club a couple years ago and the writing was so dull I felt like my brain was chewing cardboard. This one is so much better that it's almost unbelievable that they are by the same author. However, I do have a lot of thoughts about Elisabeth Elliot and will probably do a post about her in the future.
What I'm Enjoying Lately
- My little Christmas tree is up!
- We've been gifted snow this past week and it's so cozy living in a snow globe.
- Homemade soup and sourdough
- I've moved my couch so that it faces the windows. Freshening up the furniture layout is always nice.
- Beeswax candles
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