Changing the World

Sometimes it's easy to fall into the mindset that we're not accomplishing anything. I mean really, I do the marketing for a chain of paint stores based Holland, Michigan. And while I enjoy my job, am grateful for the work, and believe in the company...making stunning photoshop ads about paint and what it will do for your home isn't exactly earth-shattering stuff. It's definitely not the stuff of which dreams are made.

There was never a day in college where I walked into a class and thought..."someday, someday I'll "arrive". Oh, yeah...someday, I'll be making paint ads."

Nope. In college, I was going to be "Somebody" (capital "S"). I was going to do "Something" (capital "S"). In fact, that's why I didn't mind spending all that money: It was just a down payment on my future.

Yeah, then I graduated.

I don't remember exactly what happened, but somehow I ended up not being "Somebody" or even "somebody". Somehow I ended up not doing "Something".

Instead of the Esteemed Professor, the Accomplished Writer, the Philosopher, the Pastor, I ended up being the "Paint Guy": father of six, husband of one. The big dreams and the college-visions faded away into the reality of work-a-day life. And from time to time, it's easy to fall into the mindset, as I said earlier, that I'm not accomplishing anything. But then I found this from the Book of Sirach (one of those "extra" books in a Catholic Bible) and I realized I'm looking at things upside down:

Some [men] have left behind a name and men recount their praiseworthy deeds;
But of others there is no memory, for when they ceased, they ceased.
And they are as though they had not lived, they and their children after them.
Yet these also were godly men whose virtues have not been forgotten;
Their wealth remains in their families, their heritage with their descendants;
Through God's covenant with them their family endures, their posterity, for their sake.
And for all time their progeny will endure, their glory will never be blotted out;
Their bodies are peacefully laid away, but their name lives on and on.
At gatherings their wisdom is retold, and the assembly proclaims their praise.

--Sirach 44:8-15

Those verses and the sentiment they convey put everything in perspective. My job, my calling, my career isn't to be one of those guys who leave behind a name and deeds that men (and women) will be talking about.

But that's OK, because God still has a plan for me: He wants me to be the other kind of guy the passage talks about: you know, the one "of which there is no memory, for when they ceased, they ceased."

And while that seems like a bit of a downer at first, it's not really all that bad.

See, I've been put here on this earth to be a regular guy. To work a regular, sometimes boring, sometimes thankless, rarely glamorous job. To drive a little purple (yes, purple) 1996 Chevy Cavalier. To live in and someday own a little blue house in Zeeland.

And, to be the father of 6 children.

And that is the biggest, most important, most earth-shattering experience I can imagine. Five souls are entrusted to my care (one soul returned to God shortly after her birth). And it's my job--my vocation--my calling--to raise them so that, one day, they will step into an eternity with Christ.

If I can do that, with God's help, I won't care whether anybody knows I ever lived. I won't care that I never pulled that six-figure salary. I won't care that I drove a little purple girl car and never once owned a vehicle that looked manly. I won't care because my wealth will be in my family, my heritage will be in the descendants of my children.

I've got the chance, right now, to do something, to teach my kids something that will last well beyond my lifetime--something that can reach to my grandkids and the grandkids of my grandkids. I can pass on a faith--a real, living faith in our Lord. I can instill in them a desire to obey His commands and to love others in the same manner that He loved us. And in so doing, I have the chance to make an impact well beyond my already-determined number of years.

Some of us explode onto the scene and live huge lives, moving mountains, changing the world. Others live in the shadows of the shadows of those mountain-movers. But we can still change the world.