Where do I belong?: Defining Our Purpose on Earth

My boss is like a baby; he screams and wakes me up every half hour.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

She was like a magnet: attractive from the back, but repulsive from the front.

I like analogies. They can significantly clarify things that would be otherwise excessively complicated to understand. One thing about being a Christ-follower is that the God we seek after is way beyond our understanding. When I come across a good analogy related to my faith, I like to savor it. While reading Francis Chan’s Crazy Love this week, I came across an analogy worth sharing regarding how we should see ourselves in the world.

Chan said to see the whole of time as a film. Not the whole of time as in your lifetime, but the whole of time as in pre-Genesis 1:1 to post Revelation 22:21. In this film, any Christian would have to agree, God is the main character. The film follows the story of His creation of the world, the Fall, and the conflict following. Slowly the plot builds to a integral part where God sends His own son into a deprived world where His son eventually sacrifices His life because of His love for His creation. Although we’ve not yet reached that point, we know how the film ends as well.

In this whole movie of life, each and every individual created gets to play a part. Some people get more screen time: Moses, Joseph, Paul, even Billy Graham and Martin Luther, others are no less important, but most don’t get to spend as much time on screen. So we’re all extras in a big film about God. But that’s it. We’re extras.

If you were an extra in an actual film, you would undoubtedly play the film for your family and friends and exclaim in excitement for that 2/5ths of a second when you can see the back of your head in the corner of the screen. Your mom or your best friend might get excited with you, but, for the most part, nobody is really going to care about your “big debut.” Similarly, in life we often get waaaaaay too caught up in ourselves, convinced that those 2/5ths of a second was what the film was made for. But it’s not.

David says it well in Psalm 39:

“Show me, Lord, my life’s end
    and the number of my days;
    let me know how fleeting my life is.
 You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
    the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Everyone is but a breath,
    even those who seem secure.”

This is the attitude we need to retain. We are not the main character and we should not live as if we were.

But, at the same time, that shot needed extras to be complete. The whole story of good and evil on the earth couldn’t be played out without characters–without the extras. While we need to, in humility, remember how small we are, we also need to remember, in awe and the same humility, that we were created with a purpose. We need to remember that, though our life is so short, every breath we breathe is valuable. We matter to God. He sent His son to redeem us. Even extras have specific parts to play.

But even then, our parts as extras are always to bring glory to the main character.  If we do not serve our purpose of directing audience attention to God, we are useless within the film. But if, through living our everyday lives and doing our minor tasks, we point people in the direction of God, how perfectly we are fulfilling our 2/5ths of a second on the film.

So friends, you matter. You have a purpose. But life is short. Use your 2/5ths of a second to bring glory to the Hero of the show. In doing so, you will be faithfully making your 2/5ths everything that it can and should be.