Sometimes the Holy Spirit says, “James is distracted and hasn’t got his guard up – let’s plant a bomb in his head.”
I was just on my way to the school to collect the children, and my phone pinged. It was a message from someone who works with me, recommending a YouTube video about the importance of having a sense of vision. As I walked, I started thinking about visions and purpose and all the fuss surrounding them. I wondered if I could condense my own sense of purpose into a pithy phrase; a personal vision of sorts. Off the top of my head I came up with the following:
To know God better and bring as many people along with me as I can.
That seemed good to me. Maybe it could do with some tweaking, but it was not at all bad for literally the first thought that popped into my head. I was quite pleased with myself.
And that’s when my head exploded…
You see, I recognised the first bit. It was very me. I’m all about knowing God better (whatever that means); a hunger to know Him better has been my fuel for years. But the second part of that pithy thought? Well, it seemed very…un-James like.
Followers of this blog, or anyone who knows me, will understand that I’m a quiet, introverted, self-focused, people-avoiding, navel-gazing, task-completer. My ideal day involves me, a list consisting of easy tasks, plenty of free time and no distractions from the creatures I share this planet with, sentient or otherwise. However, followers of this blog will also know that I have wrestled with the fact that God doesn’t seem to care much what I want. He has called me (the navel-gazing people-avoider) into a leadership role on more than one occasion, with varying degrees of failure. He’s made me happy and excited to have thoughts about Him, but He won’t let me rest unless I’m also thinking about how best to share those thoughts with others.
The desire to know God comes very naturally to me, but bringing others along? Not so much, and yet that’s the purpose that popped into my head. More than that, it’s what I know I should be attempting. It’s what I have been attempting over the years. Dare I say it, it’s actually what I want to attempt. As painful as the journey has been for me, God has done the impossible. He’s taught me to think of others. It’s almost as if He deliberately created me with gifts that contradicted my personality in order to ensure that they kept one another in balance. Surely not?
Anyway, there’s my vision for the moment – ‘To know God better and bring as many people along with me as I can’. The first part was written by me and the second part was written by God. I think that’s the best type of vision really; the best sense of purpose. Not one that is 100% you, or even one that is 100% God, but rather the one that you and God have agreed to partner in. It’s like that Frederick Buechner quote – ‘Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.’ Your job is to bring the joy and pay attention when God brings the need.
And that’s the story of how God surprised me once again.
