Making waves

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” - Bruce Lee “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” - John Wooden

How often the words “making an impact” and “changing the world” have come up in conversations these past few weeks. Conversations about life’s meaning; about what living with purpose entails; about when you know that what you are doing is good enough. The funny thing about these conversations is the fact that “meaning”/”impact” is so often connected to (I want to go as far as say melded with?) numbers – my life can only mean something if it impacts lots and lots of people. So we are only good enough, we are only making an impact, if we are reaching the whole world. If every person with us in this world (well, at least the vast majority) doesn’t know who we are or what we do, we can consider ourselves meaningless. I myself have to admit to suffering from this Oprah/Mother Theresa complex every so often – even though I am told that what I do adds meaning, if the whole world isn’t saying it, it’s as if it never happened.

This has me thinking – when I’m not thinking how useless I am because I haven’t established world peace, of course – about what the value is I see in such a big life? What any of us see in such a big life? Lots of people know you then, yes, and lots of them will probably admire you. You might even be rich and be able to throw resources into all sorts of causes that fix many things. But how does that impact your life? What does it mean when you are on your own? What does it mean to all the many people that know of you when they are alone? Because, in the end, life and meaning is about those times – those times when there is only you. Of course, immediate tension arises in me, for I follow a God whose one desire is to impact hearts. And having such a big life/influence certainly touches people’s hearts.

But in what way? And how permanently? Is my helping reaching and changing their innermost thoughts? Am I strengthening them for the whole of the life they are living? Because isn’t that the change God is talking about? Well, never mind talking about, isn’t that the change God focused on when He walked among us? He was not a celebrity. He had no means. He had no grand schemes. And yet, He changed the world forever. How? By really investing His all into a handful of people and changing their hearts and minds.

It sounds much less exciting, yes. It frustrates every ounce of my (every one of us’) secret celebrity dream. But then, when it is late and I am alone, I am again reminded of the question – Is being well known the same as being known? The same as knowing? And, in the quiet, I know…  

“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest men and women and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded.” - Bessie Anderson Stanley

You are loved!

This is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased

This week is Pentecost, and as a start to the week’s celebration, I got to listen to a wonderful man named Tom Smith. Because of his teaching, and because of my personal circumstances at this time – my mother is having a very serious back-operation today and my sister-in-law is having the first grandchild on Sarel’s side of the family immanently – these are the thoughts that have been rattling through my brain. I hope my sharing them can mean something to you…

The sad thing is that these wonderfully noble motives often lead us down the wrong track…something I was reminded of again when reading the following from Donald Miller: “If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo. But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to be meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either”.

Now, it might not be a Volvo specifically, but we are more often than not trying to affirm our purpose and meaning through physical things. When actually, in those moments where we are faced with the reality of life and death, it isn’t those things that come to mind. Rather it is the things that make us ugly cry, those things that lift our spirits, that force us to breathe deeply and that confront us with the harsh beauty that life is that our thoughts keep returning to. 

For those are the things that make our lives worthwhile…that make them feel fully lived in the dark of death’s shadow…and at the basis of all these things lies our desire to be loved! It is in the meaning our lives have for those around us – in the love that we are looked at, that we are hugged with – that we finally know that our being here has not been in vain. That knowing that one life has breathed easier because we have lived.

The most wonderful thing?! That, even before we start looking at the people around us – people who can be fickle and childish – we can be grounded in God’s overwhelming love! “The LORD your God is with you; his power gives you victory. The LORD will take delight in you, and in his love he will give you new life. He will sing and be joyful over you, as joyful as people at a festival.” – Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord DELIGHTS in the mere fact of our existence! He SINGS over the people He has created us to be! And that only because we exist – BEFORE we DO or SAY anything?! 

My life has meaning because I am I, created by God to be the me I am, my only purpose being to stay true to the dream He dreamt when He made me. We just have to BE for our lives to have abundant meaning! So let’s stop chasing and striving and being so busy with what the world expects that we forget who we are…let’s refocus on God and his delight…let’s relax…for WE are his BELOVED, with whom He is well pleased!