A Time to Stand- Day 10- June R&R

As I finished Chapter 7 of The Call, entitled "A Time to Stand," I found myself thinking about a quote that Guinness includes from the “Hot Gates” and the Spartan 300. Their statement was dramatic- 

I adjusted it a little (LOL)  to apply to us:

"Friend, tell my Jesus that we have lived as He would have wished, and we are buried here in peace."

What struck me this time was not the courage of the original statement, although there is certainly courage there. It was the simplicity of it.

Years ago, when I first read The Call, I think I was much more interested in the larger questions of calling. What does God want me to do? What impact am I supposed to have? How do I find my purpose? Those are still important questions, but at this time in my life,  they don't seem quite as important as they once did.

The longer I live, the more I find myself thinking about quiet faithfulness. Sure, who wouldn’t want to be Leonidas summoning his 300 to fight like hell…. or Rocky standing and swinging ... .or John Wayne at the Alamo? Our hearts get inspired by those stories.

I wonder if in heaven we will shed tears and thunder applause at other stories?  The widow who quietly prayed for decades, or the poor man who gave up his soup to a child… the small things that we never noticed but God never missed?

I Corinthians 15:58 has been one of my favorite verses for many years now:

"Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain."

I've returned to that verse repeatedly because it speaks to something most of us struggle with. We want to know whether our efforts matter.

Much of the work we do involves planting seeds that we may never see grow. We invest in students who move away. We help people who eventually forget our names. We labor in places where the fruit appears slowly, if it appears at all.

Yet Paul says that labor done for the Lord is never wasted.

As I thought about that this week, I also realized that part of the reason I continue writing these reflections and writing lyrics/ publishing music is because I want to leave something behind. Not a legacy in the grand sense of the word. Most of us will be forgotten sooner than we imagine.

But perhaps someday a grandson or granddaughter will stumble across one of these writings and wonder what their grandfather believed.

If that happens, I hope they don't come away impressed with me. I hope they come away convinced that God is good.

I hope they see evidence of a man who stumbled plenty of times, got things wrong more than he would like to admit, but ultimately found that Christ was faithful.

The older I get, the more I think that is what it means to stand.

That may not sound very dramatic, but it increasingly sounds like the kind of life I want to live.

To how I am called……