More Lost Ruminations

Jesus acts like he doesn’t owe me an explanation–like the calling is a sufficient act of grace in itself and I should be thankful simply for being chosen.

I wrote that a couple days ago and it’s been haunting me ever since. And like I said before, I’m beginning to understand.

I understand now that, if Jesus had given me any more clarity and direction since Ember fell apart then my life would, once again, be centered around the calling. The mission, the task, would become my idol. My gifts and sense of purpose would be the primary source of significance in my life, rather than the one from whom those gracefully flow.

So rather than making my calling an idol, I’ve made the search to recapture it the idol. The quest and the question have become the center. Only persons can sit on thrones, and yet I have offered the throne of my being to a nonentity–a vapor and a nothing. A quest. A recapturing of old glories that, like the wildflowers in the high country of Tuolomne, have blossomed and faded in their time.

What a wretched state it is to idolize a nothing. What emptiness is found in the centering of a phantom. Oh, how I have been mistaken all these years! Jesus didn’t call me to a task. He didn’t call me to a plan. He called me to himself. No wonder he didn’t give me an explanation–you can’t explain love! What a wonderful act of grace is this, that he would save me from the mission in order to be loved! And then, to love.