I recently watched 007 and it’s all about James Bond on mission. The story is about him taking down the bad guy. His mission is helped by a team of people who help him because they have the same mission. Without the mission they don’t really know what to do, and in fact James spends a good amount of time simply drinking his life away before coming back to his team. Without a mission we squander our resources on temporary pleasures that always seem to leave us emptier than before.
Recently I heard some strange and sad statistics: more women are dominating the education system than men. In other words, yay for women, but what is happening to the men? Men no longer feel the NEED to be a man. They are becoming more and more absent in families, jobs, and in education. Why?
They don’t have the right mission in mind.
Self glory is a mission that kills a person.
If your mission is about fulfilling yourself (which is the slogan of our culture) then why do so many people who reach the top commit suicide or overdose on drugs? I believe the Bible offers the answer to that question when we consider the purpose our Creator gave us in the beginning. Genesis states that God tells man “be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth.” Fill the earth with people who know me, and take care of each other and of this world I’m making. Take care of everything. Take ownership of this world and not just for your good but for the good of everyone and everything in it.
“And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
So I want to teach my kids that their chief end in life, their purpose, their reason for waking up each day is to glorify God and enjoy Him. Outside of that there is nothing.
I’ve been reading John 15 to Noah each time I visit him in the NICU because I want him to know that abiding in Christ is what matters in life. I also want to remind myself of this because I start to waver at the thought of what life might be like for him or me when we get home…how will Down syndrome affect him and how will it affect me, but reading John 15 makes all of that irrelevant. What matters is that we abide in Christ.
Learning what it means to “abide in Christ” seems to have been my life journey with God. And what it has come to mean to me now is simply that I draw close to God. That I ask Him for wisdom and direction when my emotions are going in all kinds of directions. It means depending on Him to give me what is the best. It means everyday, moment by moment, I am in God’s perfect plan so I have every reason to work hard and enjoy the fact that God is using what I do for His glory and my good. It also means resting well, eating well, spending quality time with my kids, loving my husband, and walking in constant obedience to the Spirit’s voice at each next step. It’s about complete trust and surrender to His lordship—especially when suffering ensues. It’s about letting go of control, but not just letting it go as if prying it out of my hands, but letting go because there is nothing else for me to hold on to but the mercy of God. It’s letting go with elation.
There is good in this abiding.
There is peace and joy.
There is nothing to lose in this abiding and everything to gain.
Even in my situation…I can abide in Christ and I want Noah to know that this is his chief purpose in life as a boy born with Down Syndrome. He is not different than his brother or sister. We are all called to abide in Christ and as we do we are fruitful and we help multiply the number of people who live to the Lord and not to their own agendas.
Today we received the final word that Noah indeed has Down Syndrome. Up until now we all held on to this small chance that he might have a mosaic form of it or that he might not have it at all because we were still waiting for his genotype labs to come back and confirm it. Today was that day. It is confirmed. He has Down syndrome. For a moment it shook me again to my core. I felt the little pieces in me begin to shake and shatter and I made my way to the bathroom holding on to the truth of God with every ounce of energy I had in me.
I am a desperate person.
I have grown in my desperation over the years and today I have grown more desperate.
In my mind I have had evil thoughts like “what if I never tried for a third child? Was it a mistake to try and have another baby when I had two perfectly healthy and beautiful kids?” “Why is this happening to me…or how is this happening to me? This wasn’t supposed to happen to me…”
I feel waves of my fear come at me and I begin to have tears stream down my cheek as I tell God I am afraid. I am scared. I feel so helpless. I don’t know if I can take care of Noah. And I hear my Shepherd’s voice guide me back to the mission.
My mission on earth for as long as I am here is to glorify God and enjoy Him. To multiply the people who know Him and take care of whatever God gives me. People, money, time, energy, thoughts, materials, relationships, etc.
and as I stare at Noah who is now sleeping on my chest I am overcome with a love for him. The world may not accept him and he may have a different kind of life but he is God’s beloved child and my great gift. And our mission is one: to glorify God and enjoy Him, and my job is to live that mission out everyday for my family and for myself.
To abide in Christ daily, because in Him we will see much fruit, but apart from Him we can do nothing. (John 15)
Abide: what does this mean to you?
To me it means depending on God for everything. Believing that He is good and this is all part of His good and perfect plan to bring Him glory and to give me a full life overflowing with goodness. So when the fear hits I run to my refuge which is God and I recall His love for me, and wait for His love to work like lava by melting away all the fear and reminding me His hand is on this and His eyes have never left me.
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