It’s easy to ignore that big picture when you’re young. It’s the here and now that matters. It’s the current drama, crisis, trauma that occupies space and time. When you’re young.
Youth slips away like a warm breeze you barely notice until the air turns crisp, and you reach for a sweater and wish you could still feel the toasty wrap of that summer breeze.
What is the BIG picture anyway? It’s “life and death”. It’s what the Lord has for you to do. Now and later. It’s perspective gained by noticing you’re not the center of the universe after all. It’s discovering obedience to the God (who loves you more than you could ever know) has more value than your personal insights and desires to do things outside His designs for you.
That big picture isn’t just about the small things which you thought were huge. It’s not about career. It’s not even about family. It transcends the confines of our minds and unites with a purpose so large we can’t really envision it. We get glimpses when seemingly unconnected things in our lives suddenly weave their way into each other, startling us in their relationship. We observe in awe and mumble, “Small world.” Because it is to the One who created it . . . and us.
It’s not that writing isn’t important because if that’s what the Lord has given you to do, it has value and purpose. It’s that the writing done for personal acclaim is small in so many ways. Stripped down, our efforts to further ourselves only demonstrate how insignificant we really are. That we have to work at proving our worth is ludicrous, for without Him we have none. He engineers our talents and consequent successes. And then we have the dialogue about “successes” and what constitutes them. How can we truly know the real value of our work in this realm?
The BIG picture includes the trials and how we navigate them. The tests of our character reveal how much we rely on our Savior. The hope we place in Him alone tells of where our loyalties lie and how we view our eternity. The BIG picture includes heaven and earth and all that can be done to insure not only our ascent but that of others.
Our mindful struggles over value-less points show us how captivated we are by the things of this world, serving only to divide and conquer our rigorous but meaningless battlefields.
God owns The BIG Picture. We invent our own to no avail. The real BIG picture is of His definition and in the end it will be the only one that matters.
Thank God.