Purpose

Isaiah 43:7  -Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.

 

I know what it is --our purpose in being here -on Earth, in southwest Virginia, in Dot, on Fields Drive.  It's to glorify Him.  I get that.  I cling to that truth, often losing it in the busyness of church and gymnastics and guitar lessons and baseball camp and spilled Cheerios.  I fight my way back to that truth at night when I wonder what I look like to Him, here in Dot, when the gymnast and the baseball player and the guitarist -and their dad -are asleep and it's just me and Him and my works spread bare before Him.  Glorifying --is that how I look --to Him?

 

Because it's not often how I feel.  Selfish, maybe, or tired.  I think that's how I must look.  Anxious -even anxious to please -is the face that I wear most nights --at least if I'm the one who's looking and judging and measuring up.  I do a lot of self measurement, and my ruler leaves little room for grace.   

 

I think of her, eating ants caught by her bed.  Ants  caught  by  her  bed.  And I think of my sweet girl, in her pink room, baby dolls nestled by her side.  And I wonder why --but mostly HOW or WHAT.  

 

What does YOUR glory look like? and HOW can it be fulfilled in me?  How can I reach her and teach her to think of more than herself?  

 

We pray for the Lord to give us a great work to do --a real work --a work that wells up inside us and spills out into the world.  And we wait, and I wonder, and I measure, and fall short.

 

And we give a ride to the woman at the grocery store who was on her way home with bags and no car.  And we promise to return to mow the grass that reaches up to her window sills.  And Emily asks if the woman is poor, and I say, "Not today."  And the work wells up and spills over.

 

And we pray to be spilled for Him who spilled Himself freely for us, to set us free.