This Journey is My Own

I have been meaning to got on here again and a little bit of something. However, if you know anything about my blogging style you know I like to have something in particular to get wordy about. Well, I certainly have a wealth of somethings tonight...my only problem will be choosing which one to be wordy about.

My best friend called in the middle of the night last Saturday/early Sunday morning. When I finally was coherent enough to answer the call and get on the line I discovered he was telling me that his sister had just died suddenly. We spoke for a couple of hours, sharing comfort and memories and questions through the phone. I cannot say it was entirely cathartic, but it was ours and it was all we knew to say.

I spent the rest of the week immersed in the thought of mortality, the frightening reality of it for those who are lost, the sadness for those left behind and the ultimate desire to leave this wrecked world, to fly free of the sin and death that creep into life and attempt to steal security. I pondered my own life here, its meaning and purpose, searching for something concrete that I could hold on to and claim; "See here! This is my reason for walking the Earth! This here is my reason for living!". Yet no job or task or accolade I have done or received could fill those shoes. The only thing I am here for is to glorify God.

"How trite!" you say, "What a cop-out!". Perhaps...and yet when I stand before the Lord I'll be standing alone and when He holds in his hands all that I have done, when my deeds are cast into the fire of His judgment, what will survive and what will blow away as ashes?

Sometimes when I lie in bed, as sleep eludes me, I think about this life, how in many ways it is not what I expected. All the things I have longed for, all the things that my childish heart yearns and grieves for yet unfulfilled. There are many things that I have done and experienced, many things I have tasted and still my mind always goes back to the things which I have not yet had. I wonder, will I choose to let my life continue to be defined by that which I "haven't"? Do I look at my life in reverse, as if down the barrel of a gun, and say, "if only...," words thick with regret no matter what language they are spoken in. Or do I choose instead to see the things I have done. Will I continue to live life wishing that it had turned out different?

I do not delude myself into thinking that I have always done God's will. I have done more than my share of demanding my inheritance and then squandering it. Yet I always find His arms open wide; more than that, I find He is running to meet me in my fallen and pitiful state. He embraces me and takes ugly, broken, soiled pieces and forms them into something better. All my sin, all my waste is skillfully incorporated into bigger picture. What was meant for evil is transformed before my eyes into something beautiful, and not just beautiful for beauty's sake, but something that is priceless and useful. There are those who would say Monet's Water Lilies is beautiful, but what good is it besides looking pretty? My Father does not make beautiful wastes of time, that which He redeems is never without use. The works of His hands always serve a purpose.

Whatever purpose He has in mind for me may not be obvious at this time. I may not know what He has in store for me, or even what my place in this world is, but I do know that ultimately, well ultimately my only purpose is His Glory. When this life is spent (Lord, sooner rather than later I pray!) all the little details: my name, my weight, my disposition, my crimes and triumphs, they will all be gloriously swallowed up into the infinity of Christ. Even as I kneel and pray that this life be hid in His, someday this will be true. And when it is that Lindsay Evans is no longer in the flesh, all that will matter is His praise.

So why wait for a "calling"? Why waste anymore of this precious earthly time thinking about what to do with this life. I have my answer there, in Christ alone.

"No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me. From a life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man could ever pluck me from His hand. Til He returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I stand."