I can’t seem to watch
enough documentaries about people who live in Alaska, Siberia, and various
other locales where no one else lives but them. I envy that solitude, that
fight for survival where nothing matters but food, shelter, and making it
through another day. The pettiness of most of our pursuits and desires becomes crystalline and basics become paramount.
In order to chase after a taste of this desire, I love hiking on
various mountains across this great country by myself and not seeing people for
days on end. To some people that sounds like purgatory, but to me it sounds
like pure joy.
I have no desire to
ever be known or respected by anyone but my family. I don’t want to be on a
stage or have people recognize me. The idea of “rich and famous” repulses me to
my core, and everything inside me, humanly speaking, screams to stop when I sit
down to write a blog, stand up to speak, or enter a room where large groups of
people are “having a good time”. That's partially what I loved about midnight shift as a cop. While most people slept, I would go about my work keeping others safe and they never knew who I was or that I existed or did anything for them.
Here’s the funny
thing, it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter
what I want. It doesn’t matter where I want to live. It doesn’t matter if I
want to disappear and never be seen or heard from again. The only thing that matters as a follower of Christ is to
listen to His leading, and if that means I am to write, speak, or interact, I
will do it with all that I have.
After many, many
hours of watching those documentaries (and various zombie and other apocalyptic
movies that depict a similar world where only a few people remain) something
interesting struck me.
That is a life wasted.
That is a life where
someone would, maybe, find my sundried and bleached bones and then move on with
little more than a passing thought about what kind of life he lived. Life only
has meaning when we impact others for the eternal cause of Christ. Anything
short of that is gone as soon as it starts.
We are, as the Bible tells us, truly a flickering
flame, a morning fog, or a wildflower, here today and gone tomorrow. At best,
only those in direct contact with us will be affected, and they move on, as
they should, fairly quickly, and the rest of the world does not miss a beat,
not a step, and traffic resumes its commute as if nothing happened.
That was one of the things that always got me as a cop.
You work a horrific fatal accident, clean it
up, open up traffic, and I would watch the faces of those driving by while I
wrote my report. They are clueless as to what they are driving over and the
images I smelled.
That’s our life. It does me no good to hide in Alaska, Siberia, or any other distant corner of this world, temporally, sure, but not permanently. I must let the love of others trump my human instincts to run and hide. The Great Commission is my primary pursuit, and if that means becoming known so that some may come to the knowledge of the Truth, then that’s what I will do.
Not begrudgingly, but with a passion that drives me
past the mediocre and into the realm of all that He has gifted me.
The naysayers, like me, will soon be gone, and it’s only eternity
that really matters.
So no matter where
you are, a small town in Alaska or a large city in Brazil, impact your world
for Christ. Stand up, speak up, and tell others of the Good News, even if you
are uncomfortable and want to hide in a dark corner like I do.
“But you will receive power when
the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people
about me everywhere--in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the
ends of the earth." Acts 1:8
