Significance

Perhaps I am coming to a mid life crisis early in life.  At forty-one, I often think questions like, “Is what I am doing really significant?”  I don’t mean, “Do other people think it’s significant?”   I mean, “Is it, in the total scheme of things, the most valuable thing that I could do with the only life I will ever have?

 At times, I do feel like what we are doing is significant.  I have a sense that God has led us every step of the way in this ministry.  It is not the question of, “Are we are not doing the right things as an organization,” but am I, Eric Himelick, doing what I was made to do?  Am I fulfilling my calling?  In light of the fact that this is the “real thing” and not just a practice run, is what I am doing today really the best thing that I could be doing?  Is it significant?

One of the tortures in some prison camps, was to make prisoners move huge piles of rock from one location to another and then back again.  The sense of futility and meaninglessness was designed to break men down and would gradually drive them insane.  Hard labor in itself does little to destroy us.  In fact, it can make us stronger.  But to think that what you are doing – no matter how hard or easy it might be – is somehow pointless or insignificant?  That is unbearable.

Many people feel that the work that they do is insignificant or that the work that they do is not what they are best at.  Many are locked into a job because that is what pays the bills.  Life just happens.  They really don’t see the work that they do as significant or insignificant; it’s just what they have to do to survive.

But who defines significance?  What about the sanitation worker who clears our streets of garbage?  Is his work really any less significant than mine?  If he didn’t do his job (and all others like him,) it certainly would have a profoundly negative impact on society as a whole.  What about the farmer who spends his life tilling soil, planting crops, cultivating and harvesting?  Is that significant work?  It certainly would be a terrible thing if we didn’t have people investing their lives in that way.  But is that the way that I should invest my time and talents?  Do we see some work as “beneath us?”  Or is it really that God has given some people the gift (and desire) to do certain kinds of work?

There is that hallowed, hollow cliché that we have used for years, “You can be anything you want to be.”  But is that really true?  And if everyone can “be what they want to be,” then who will be all of the things that people need to be (but probably won’t want to be because it doesn’t pay enough or is too much work?)

The idea that Jesus spent the first 30 years of his life doing something as mundane as working in a carpentry shop is both appealing and appalling to me.  On one hand I want to say, “What a terrible waste of time for the Son of God to be busy cutting trees and making objects out of wood!”  But who am I to question the ways of God.  On the other hand as I reflect on His life I wonder, “Maybe every vocation or calling and the work that goes with it is sacred!”

What is the most significant thing I could do with the time I have left on this earth?  I’m not completely sure, but I have some clues from the life of Jesus.  Perhaps much of my life should be spent “laying down my life” daily for the sake of others like Jesus did.  What that may mean is different for everyone, but it might mean that my view of myself (and you for yourself) needs to come down a few notches.  Changing diapers, cooking supper, reading books to toddlers, washing dishes, caring for a flower bed, getting groceries for an elderly person, planting a crop, helping someone move, and a hundred other “meaningless” tasks are exactly what I need to be doing.

Is there any one of those tasks that is any more meaningful than another?  Perhaps, but it is only more meaningful because of its use of the gifts and abilities that God has uniquely given me.  In other words, there is a work that God has for me to do, and only I can effectively do it.  It is my vocation.

How are we to know what our vocation really is?  Or is there only one vocation?  Could not one man be a husband, father, neighbor, friend, teacher, and plumber all at the same time?  What then is his vocation?  Is it just what he does for a paycheck?  Perhaps there is not one vocation, but many different roles.  Perhaps also there are gradient degrees of significance – good, better, and best.  Not all work is equal, but neither is all work suited for all people.  What may be the best work for me may be only good work for someone else.  Perhaps our work can only be judged in light of how it affects others.  In other words, “Is it what is best for the community?”

Only as I am in community, in relationship with God and with His people, does my place, my vocation, within that community become defined.  As I work for others and with others, skills, strengths, and roles emerge.  Ultimately though, what makes my contribution to my family, community or world significant is not what I do, but why I do it.  “As much as you did it for the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me,” Jesus said.  To serve others as we serve Christ is what makes any job into a vocation.  It makes a meaningless task into a sacred act of worship. 

I often wonder how all of time will merge into eternity.  How will Jesus come back?  What if it is today?  The sense of urgency is real, but it is the sense of importance that should drive all we do.  “Occupying until He comes” is an active work.  We are agents of His Kingdom working in light of the Kingdom that is both here and coming.  All is not either sacred or secular.  We live like everything is sacred.  We work like the world depends on the next piece we cut or the next crop we plant, because it does.  We also know that all creation groans waiting to be redeemed, waiting for the restoration of all things.  So we pray (and work) in faith, seeking to be part of the answer to the prayers we pray. “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” is our heart’s passion.  While we stay faithfully focused on the little work that we can do, we believe that God is at work bringing His Kingdom.