In my last post, I think I vacillated between two perspectives on one’s life. That isn’t a problem because neither perspective completely explains our experience. But both are roughly accurate and helpful.
So let me more clear about them:
Life as Preparation
We are supposed to trust that our lives are leading somewhere important. Thus, what we are going through now is also important because it is meant to train us for that eventual challenge. “You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much” (Matthew 25:11). In my book I mention David telling Saul why he could fight Goliath. David’s job as a shepherd was so menial, that Jesse didn’t even bother to summon him to meet with Samuel (1 Samuel 16:11). But when David discusses his experience with Saul, he treats it as training for war:
But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” And David said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you!”
1 Samuel 17:34–37 ESV
We can see another way this works in Mark’s Gospel. In chapter 15, verse 4o the text introduces women who had also followed Jesus and were present at his crucifixion. Most of Jesus’s official disciples were missing in action at that time. They had fled.
Having introduced the women, Mark then introduces Joseph of Arimathea. While the disciples are hiding in fear and despair, Joseph “took courage” (15:43) and asked Pilate for the corpse of Jesus so he could give him a proper and honorable burial. He publicly sided with Jesus after Jesus had been publicly defeated.
Then Mark reverts to the women, again. They too are concerned about the burial because there had not been enough time to properly “anoint” the body.
Mark has already established that it is the task of disciples to bury their master (by telling us about the burial of John the Baptist – 6:29). Jesus’ disciples failed in their responsibility. So suddenly “secondary characters” appear to provide Jesus with a public venue for his triumph over death and to be the first eyewitnesses to his resurrection.
I put quotation marks around secondary characters because I don’t want to claim that there really are characters that are secondary in life. But, taking the Gospel of Mark as a story, obviously the disciples are major characters. And they failed at a key point. So God called others “onto the field,” as it were.
Often, when we think of ourselves as secondary, we do so to nurture some resentment or to allow ourselves to be lax. We don’t need to be really committed because God has not given us an important role in life, we think.
But the women and Joseph didn’t see it that way. If they had, they would have just discussed the failings of the disciples and not done anything about it. Instead, they showed they were prepared for the challenge. They were available to be over much because, we can infer, they had been faithful in their invisible and “unimportant” positions before.
So we can look at our life when we are frustrated with the seeming inglorious triviality of it and remind ourselves not to despise the day of small things (Zechariah 4:10).
Not All Epic Battles are Obvious
As I said above, I am not prepared to claim that there really are secondary characters in life. And I question whether there are really secondary challenges. Ultimately, God praises our good works if we are faithful (Romans 2:29). He doesn’t ever ignore them because they don’t count as significant to some narrative. The narrative God considers important is that we trust him in our actions that they matter even if we don’t have any other grand narrative in which to place them. That’s why I wrote: “But what if God watches us live our ordinary frustrating lives the way gamers watch “e-sports” online?” Another way of putting it is that we might be God’s daytime television program. He is rooting for us, even in our “mundane” challenges, to reflect his image.
The point here is that every single circumstance a human being faces, whether it seems trivial or humiliating, or is even self-inflicted, is an opportunity to show what God Himself would do in those circumstances. This is simply an inescapable consequence from the fact that we are made in God’s image. So nothing is trivial. Everything is an epic tale, a clash of the titans. And when we deny that fact, we are engaging in escapism and fleeing responsibility. Don’t do that.