I slept on the sofa last night in the place where I go to study and write sometimes because it was snowing. Maybe its because I grew up where it never snowed; or because the smell of fir trees remind me of my happiest childhood memories; or because my wife is at her very happiest in a snowstorm. I don’t know the deep reasons why, but I love snow, so when it’s falling at night I lay on the sofa and turn the lights on outside so I can tilt my head to just to the right a bit and see infinite white flakes falling slowly from the sky. They represent covering, and hope, and beauty, and the waters of sustaining life when they melt later.
On that same sofa, a tilt of the head to the left and I see the fire, which represents warmth, safety (when confined in the firebox), and a sense of reward. I say reward because this heat is earned by thinking ahead.
Acquiring wood happens because I sharpened my chain saw chain, felled some trees with a neighbor and cut them into 18 inch long rounds, hauled the rounds, split them, hauled the split wood so it could be stacked in the meager sunlight it needs to dry, hauled it again to the deck just before first snow, and now haul it inside, piece by piece, for burning. Each peace represents time outside, working for heat, for heart, for health. The whole thing takes at least six months, and its best if the drying period includes two summers! The wood I’ll stack this June will burn best in the winter of 2016.
Proverbs 6:6-8 tells us to consider the ant, learn from her ways, and be wise. The ant, without any supervisor, org chart, performance evaluation, or any other metric holding her feet to the fire of day to day diligence, still does her work. This, the author tells us, is worth imitating. What does the ant, and firewood gathering have to teach us about the rest of life?
1. There should be a big picture. I should, in other words, have some semblance of an idea what I’m doing here on this planet. If I’m a parent, then I’m serving, blessing, empowering, and loving, young lives that will, I hope and pray, grow into flourishing adults who love God and people, and are equipped to bless the world. If I’m a teacher, I’m learning so that I can share, so that others can grow and be transformed. If I’m an artist, I’m creating so that other can be comforted, or shaken awake from the complacency, and smitten by beauty. Construction? Business owner? Administrator? Electrician? Nurse? We are, each of us, a mix of strengths, gifts, passions and these things, taken together, constitute a call, the answer to the question “Why am I here?”. It’s fine to wrestle with that, because such wrestling is surely part of every person’s journey, and the questions will, themselves, help solidify the answers. If you’re in that searching phase, I’d encourage you to listen to a talk I gave years ago entitled, “Yes and No: Finding Your Voice in the World.” It’s a vodcast, available in the itunes store for free.
2. There should be a knowledge of next steps. All right. I know why I’m here, and part of why I’m here is to provide warmth for my home and family (along with bigger callings like leadership, teaching, writing). If I’m going to live faithfully in any of these areas, there will be next steps to take, each of which will move me closer to the big call. If the vision if a fire on a cold winter’s night, a next step in the summer is cutting, then splitting, then stacking, then hauling. Every next step is taken because of the big picture, and knowing those steps and having the skill to take them are essential because without the little next steps, the big picture remains forever just an idea. I’m convinced that this is where we often fall down. We want to write a book, or start a company, or move our church toward a vision of health, or run a marathon. We have a vision! But vision, without clarity regarding next steps, isn’t really a vision at all, it’s a wish, a fantasy.
3. There needs to be a focus. If the big picture vision is important enough, then the next steps you need to take rise to the top of the priority pile. Because fire is vital in winter, it’s more important than rock climbing in the summer. Because writing is important, it sits above watching playoff basketball on the priority list. Because I’m a teacher, I’m not a great skier. Paul tells Timothy that he needs to “fan into flame” the gift he’s been given, which is a way of saying we need to know our big vision, know our next steps, and make taking those steps the most important parts of our days, every single day. When we try to become twenty things, we’ll become nothing at all. Recognizing our finiteness is, perhaps, the most liberating truth most of us need to learn.
4. Meet your new friend named Tedium. Standing on the summit, or wearing the marathon medal, or attending your children’s college graduation, or your own 50th wedding anniversary; these events (or others like them) are the things we want on the highlight reel of our lives, and that’s all well and good. But that marriage, and those kids graduating are the fruit of thousands of diapers changed, dishes cleaned, little games attended, tiny courtesies extended, bicycles repaired, oils changed, checkbooks balances, debts discussed, taxes payed, wood split, commute endured. Most of life, it seems, consists of these seemingly mundane events, and yet its how faithfully and fully engaged we live there, in the land of tedium, that determines whether we’ll endure over the long haul. For me at least, I’m best able to coexist with tedium when I do three things:
1) keep the big picture in mind – I’m not reading “Stop that Ball” for the 563rd time because the plot is so compelling; I’m investing in a life. I’m not covered with pitch and sweat because I love hauling wood; I’m creating warmth in the winter. When we tie daily living to the big picture its easier to press forward.
2) practice the art of presence – time flies by when the only thing I’m thinking about is “this piece of wood” or “this paragraph” or “this observational study of the parables” or “this staff meeting”. I’m convinced that this too is where many of us fall down. We have the vision. We know the next steps. And then we get bored. While bored, facebook or the email pings, or we just start surfing the net, or dialing into to Colbert or Fox news, depending on your generation and outlook. The point, though, isn’t the quality of the distraction; the point is that we allowed ourselves to be robbed of the chance to contribute to the bigger story God wants to write, because we didn’t like the step we were needing to take in the moment, so we stopped our progress and threw some time over a cliff.
This summer, when my wife and I hike in the Alps, the route will be filled with steps we don’t want to take, because they’re just another tedious step in a line of a million, or because the next step is terrifying (some routes in the Alps literally have ladders attached to rock faces – more later). But the steps simply must be taken if we’re to reach our goal. Learning that discipline of taking next steps because of the big picture isn’t just a hiking thing, or a writing thing, or a fire thing – it’s a life thing.
What’s the hardest part for you: big picture, knowing next steps, making friends with Tedium?
What resources can you recommend to help others on the journey.
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