A Fabulous Waste.

Image © by Brian E. Faulkner

What if you woke up one morning and realized, as sure as the dawn tapping on your window, that you’ve missed the boat?  That your ship has sailed without you.

As your heart sinks toward the pit gathering in your stomach, you wonder – perhaps for the first time, but probably more often than you can count – what your life was meant
to be, what you were destined to have accomplished but have not. 

This is not about having a bucket list or mere goal setting.  It’s learning how to live as perfect a life as possible this side of Heaven.  It’s about letting God define your purpose in this world rather than trying to figure it out in your own strength. 

The Bible calls this losing your life in order to save it.

Some years ago, a friend of deep and abiding faith had P-E-R-F-E-C-T put on his license plate.  He was not at all arrogant.  In fact, he was as humble, loving and genuinely imperfect as most of us can be, but because of those seven bold letters shouting from the back of his car, people read him wrong. 

One Scriptural description of “perfect” that I came across recently defines what I’m getting at: wanting nothing necessary for completeness except that which God will provide.  As in “Let patience have her perfect work so that you will be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:4)   That’s what my friend was getting at on his license plate.

If you’re anything like me, and I believe we’re probably more alike than not, it’s likely that this is the first time you’ve come across this idea.  You may have heard about God’s saving grace and Christ being the narrow gate through which you access this grace, borne on the wings of forgiveness.  And you’ve probably heard about making Jesus your Lord as well as your Savior.  But what does this have to do with that ship … the one that appears to have set sail without you?

Everything.  As astonishing as it sounds, God has a divine plan for each one of us, no matter how many years we’ve been woolgathering on this ancient planet, a perfect way of living.  And he wants you to know what it is.

Another friend used to tell the story of listening for the train.  He grew up in Chicago, and there was a railroad line nearby that his parents told him to stay away from, which (of course) he did not.  I can imagine him and his friends discussing how they’d wait ‘til the last second before jumping off the track to let the train roar by, which (of course) they did not.  What my friend did do, however, was put his ear to the cool steel rail, where he discovered that, in time, he could detect the vibrations of an approaching train long before he could see it. 

Sometimes God blinds you with light like he did Saul on the Damascus road, but most often he speaks quietly, whispering in the background of your life, tugging at your heart in quiet, unexpected ways ... the train in the distance.

I’d like to think that my Chicago friend eventually found his ship and set sail putting his prodigious talents to work for God’s purposes.  Had he done so, I am convinced that the world today would be a greatly improved place.  Had he not, what a fabulous waste.   There is (of course) a good possibility that he still has his ear to the track and is listening.
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Like me.

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