Just yesterday my girl Paige and I were doing some grocery shopping and started talking about how much of life is lived to maintain life itself, that is we farm (or shop) to eat, we make (or buy) clothes, we monitor our bodies and employ them to rest and to exercise, all to farm and make clothes.
After thinking about this idea more, I meshed it in my mind to the story of the Tower of Babel and how God destroyed a cultures attempts to reach God, a luxurious and ridiculous effort born from the modernization of the culture, the existence of a slave culture, no doubt, and a lot of free time.
The narrative of that account combined with the amount of time it takes our God-designed bodies and minds to simply sustain our temporary existence leads me to some comforting facts:
1. God is not interested in using you to build anything that might be used to replace him or give you the false sense you can interact with him without giving him all agency.
2. What God wants us to do here on earth is something we can do while doing something else.
And so I’m learning that the stuff that God wants us to do happens while we are shopping for food and making clothes and walking the dog and clearing the table to do the dishes.
In my opinion, the stuff of life is about this, then:
1. Loving each other, and learning to do so as unconditionally as possible, which will also require a leaning on God.
2. Forgiving each other, and leaning on God to do so.
3. Providing for each other and working together for the good of those we love.
4. Giving our lives to God in the sense we must learn not to grapple for control.
I don’t believe God is helping you build a Tower of Babel, be that your career or your church or your perfect family. But I do believe God wants to help you love, forgive, be patient, provide for those you love and give him control of your life.
What gets built with God’s help, then, is less tangible. The Kingdom of God, at least on earth in our time, is perhaps a relational construct.
What do you think God is helping you do? And what do you think people believe God is doing that you aren’t so sure he’s involved?
Life Happens While You’re Doing Something Else is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog
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