Mundane Miracles

This past year, I’ve been drawn to consider what it is to live a significant life.  Adventure, sacrifice, meaningfulness…they all seem to be reserved for folks who are jumping out of airplanes or pouring out their days in service to the poor.  Today I worked a ten hour day at the office, then came home, had dinner, reloaded the ipod, and now I’m writing to what may be an audience of myself.   Not exactly what I pictured when I was a college kid with large but poorly-defined dreams of a lifetime of significance..

 I saw Donald Miller speak a bit ago.  He told a story about a man who had a teenage daughter.  The daughter was getting into the whole goth scene, complete with a goth boyfriend that the father didn’t like (as if daughters have any boyfriends that fathers like).  The man went to Miller for advice on how to un-goth his daughter and exorcise the boyfriend.  Miller said he listened to the man’s story, and then told him that he could see the daughter’s reasons for what she was doing.  In the daughter’s new adventure, she got to be the rebellious, misunderstood, gothic temptress.  The only role the father offerred her was the kid who got in the way and got yelled at a lot.  So in a couple of weeks, the man called a family meeting, and without even warning his wife, announced that he had committed the family to donate $25K to an African orphanage.  This was about 24 1/2 grand more than the family actually had.  They laughed him off, but he stuck to it, and in a few weeks the whole family was on board, daughter included.  They sold some things, gave up usual expenses, and thought of creative ways to raise cash, and they actually came up with the entire sum.  In the process, even though the father never directly addressed the issue, the daughter divested herself of both the goth look & the goth boyfriend.  Because he offerred her a life of significance.  Sure, she could go on being the rebellious, misunderstood gothic temptress, which isn’t all that bad of a personna; but instead, her father gave her the role of the selfless, heroic saver of children.  A much better part to play.

 There is a friend of mine who has taken in his niece’s two year old.  Giving the neice a chance to get her life together.  He drags himself into work after spending evenings in giving himself to this child.  Not only has he & his wife taken on a child, they have jumped right into the deep end of the pool, getting the child right at age two, without the usual warm up that most parents get.  This kid desperately needs the care, and will never be able to repay him.  He is selfless, heroic.  Significant.

 I console myself, considering that the impact that I have on my wife & children, while not immediately dramatic, is one of great significance.  And it is.  However, few blokes set out to be a bad husband and father, and sometimes it seems not enough to hang one’s hat on.  There are daily, mundane miracles, that God grants me the chance to be a part of.  Opening the door for a person with arms full of groceries.  Giving my wife the time she needs to perform her own mundane miracles.  Clearing the snow from the neighbor’s sidewalk.  Late night discussions of real importance with my son.  Dropping change in the red Salvation Army bucket.  Things I am fortunate that God gives me to do. 

But I think of what Paul wrote in the second chapter of Ephesians.  Right after the famous verses in which he tells us that we are saved by grace, through faith, with no help from us.  Good verses that stand on their own.  But he follows those up in Ephesians 2:10, telling us that we are the workmanship of God himself, created with purpose in mind, created for good works, that God planned in advance for us to do.  I like these verses so much that I wrote them on my garage workbench that I wrote of earlier.

 So I wonder;  am I doing what God has planned for my life?  I don’t fear judgement for not getting all the work done, as Paul just told me that I am saved by grace.  Good thing.  But since I have gotten an ocean of grace, I would really like to show my gratitude.  God’s got things planned for my life–maybe I’m just meant to raise my kids well & be a good husband to my wife.  Maybe he’s going to tell me to sell my house and preach to the folks in Central America or Asia.  Is it my role to continue with these garden variety good works?  If so, that’s ok, there are plenty of elderly ladies that need the driveways shoveled.  Or is it my role to do something bigger, like to adopt a child with AIDS or run a homeless shelter?

 This is where i should write out a nice tidy conclusion, one that challenges the reader just a little bit, while making us (myself included) all still feel good about ourselves.  Especially after dredging up all those questions in the previous paragraph.  Alas, I do not have such a conclusion.  I have determined, for the time being, to go on as I am, yet keeping my life open to whatever else God has planned.  So tomorrow, I’ll still go to work like usual.  But if I end up in Uganda, or even in Detroit by this time next year, I pray that I would be ok with that too.