Pulling Back

Every once-in-a-while it’s good to “pull back” and give thought to the bigger picture instead of just blindly plodding on in the everyday slog.

I was thinking this morning (while awaiting the arrival of painters) of what God’s view of our world is like, compared to ours. I can imagine at his first glance it is something like this photo.

But as he would look closer, the image would reveal us humans, hustling and bustling around like hordes of ants on a mound. My sense is that as God looks down on this activity-filled planet, he laments all of the purposeless human effort.

I can hear him grieving, “O what I could accomplish through my people if they would just be responsive to my nudgings.”

Of course as humans, we’re consumed with our “important” work. We must plan for unexpected eventualities. We must take care of our family. We must invest wisely. We must plan and save so we can send our kids to college. We must be self-sufficient. We must plan for retirement.

But do we ever pull back and ask the most important question of all? That is, WHY are we doing all these things? Is it so that we can better live out God’s grace in the world (which is our sacred calling as Christians)? Or are we consumed with “our” agenda?

All of the aforementioned concerns are “western” (read Euro-American) values. And we American Christians have thoroughly bought into them. Jesus, however, had quite a contrasting plan for us, and I’ve alluded to it before in these posts.

Consider this observation by the late, Dutch Catholic priest and writer Henri Nouwen: “We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.”

And then look at what Jesus said about fruitfulness in Matthew, chapter 7: “Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits”.

So, apparently, Jesus evaluates us by what we are accomplishing for him in terms of fruitfulness, not by what we are accumulating for ourselves and/or for our future.

God’s perspective is one and the same. Which means he’s looking for some fruitbearers among us ant-like humans. Does he see any? Lord, help me to be sensitive to the nudges, and give me the faith to be a fruitbearer.