“How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers” (GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy).
One thing I notice in my own life is that it’s difficult to be interested in someone else’s life when I am consumed in my own. I can’t listen very well when my own problems constantly clamor for attention. One of the best ways for us to experience some freedom from our “little plot” and move to God’s expansive plot is to take one day per week to dedicate to God. We need one day to not be defined by how much we produce or how important we perceive ourselves to be. We need one day to remember that our first vocation is to be the child of a loving, heavenly Father. Sabbath rest is not antithetical to producing meaningful work; it’s a necessity for it.
So many of my friends in LA are consumed by their work that it creates this massive anxiety that squeezes out the joy of living, as well as, the gentle voice of God’s direction. If we believed that we work with God, by his side, like an apprentice or understudy, we wouldn’t be so frantic all the time. We all want to leave a mark, but the mark we leave is really up to God (it’s his kingdom he’s invited us into, not the other way around). If we really want to leave a legacy we need to turn our attentions toward God and his eternal purposes. I prefer the “freer sky” of life. But this way of being will take some considerable conversion. I need to change. Like John the Baptist once said, “I must become lesser and lesser so he [Christ] can become more and more.”
GK Chesterton –> CS Lews –> DF James
…Just saying