A Big Round 2 It

The jig is up. 

Nearly all of us have either an actual written-down list -- or a vague narrative of unending excuses -- for the highly unlikely "someday I'll get around to it."

Well, congratulations.  That "big round 2 it" is here.  Someday has arrived.

In this lockdown, our list of bonafide excuses have disappeared faster than that hidden bag of jelly beans.  The issue is no longer a matter of time, but facing our all-encompassing stubborn will to not do those things.  No more the grandeur of "If I only had time, how different my life would look, what a better person I would be."  No more the far-distant horizon of someday not just getting organized but being organized, cleaning out the scary hidden lair of my side of the closet, researching the family tree, or embarking on an enduring quest to learn Spanish, piano, or finally read War and Peace. This is it.

But now, during these many weeks of "time out" at home, we are realizing we never actually intended to do those noble life-altering things, and have avoided and ignored as much as possible the necessary ones calling our names.  Last week when I asked a friend what she was up to, she texted me, "Mending, ironing, sharpening knives.  It has come to this."   Every day, it seems, something else "essential" comes to the surface, raises its hand, or waves a red flag.  I am personally wading through forty years of accumulated and never-attempted recipes, wondering why prom dresses from the 90s are still hanging in the back closet, and like Nancy Drew, unveiling secrets in the old attic.  Even some of those things are just excuses to keep me from what I should actually be doing.

As Wall Street Journal writer Jason Gay recently bemoaned:  "The goal posts have moved from write the next Great American Novel to put on pants by 3 p.m."

The wisdom of Gandalf in Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring says it all:

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.  "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Taking just one tiny step is like a concentric circle (above),  because one layer leads to the next, one step to another, and one action often initiates and energizes a new direction. 

And in the layering, we may actually end up doing more than we first intended, accomplish things we never knew we were capable of, or realize the extraordinary in what only appeared as an insignificant action.  Faithfulness does not differentiate between the highest calling from the mundane, but sticks to what is needful, even when we cannot yet see the results... or an outcome at all.

We are living in unexpected times right now, a vast narrative unfolding before us, in so many dimensions and directions.  I don't want to waste what I shoulda, woulda, coulda done, smothered by the grand "might have been."  I do not know the future, but God has given me today.  And in God's economy, nothing is insignificant.

For the day of small things is not to be despised.
            ...you shall be a blessing.
Fear not,
   but let your hands be strong.

                             Zechariah 4. 10, 8. 13

The point is not just to fill up the hours, but let God fulfill them.  God says, be fruitful and multiply.  And He will do the redeeming.  We are not defined by the significance of the things we do, but changed even more by being present in what is placed before us. 

"What then shall I do this morning?  How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.  What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing," said author Annie Dillard in her book The Writing Life. 

Jonathan Edwards, a pastor in the early 1700s, wrote down a list of 70 resolutions to guide him in his thoughts, attitudes, and actions.  In resolution 52, he ponders, "I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again:  Resolved, that I will live...as...I shall wish I had done."

We will never walk this way again.  May we not deceive ourselves by adding another "round to it"  by thinking, "Well, look at what I am going to do when this lockdown is over."  May this God-given time be marked by deep transformation, unlittered by regrets.

What am I doing with this time given to me?  Concentric circles are not based on accomplishment, but incremental growing in layers that alters the shape of our lives.

We are not called to just fill up our days,
or somehow get through this,
                   but learn
                   to live faithfully.