Look at your life’s big picture

What is the connection between what you are doing this morning and the rest of your life? You may not immediately be able to place your finger on a meaningful correlation, but I hope you are aware that there definitely is one.

Author Gordon MacDonald talks of the moment that connection first made its way to his consciousness. His track coach pulled out a notebook containing specific details of how he envisioned Gordon performing in races that were three years out.

Gordon was 15 years old. For him, long-range planning consisted of what he’d do Friday night.

To see a performance plan for his life that was three years out was something he’d never even considered.

“Until that time no one had ever talked to me about the architecture — the big picture — of my life,” he said.

As I focus this summer on building a resilient life, MacDonald’s conclusion cannot be dodged.

“Resilient people believe in big pictures,” he said.

Resilient people believe their life is going somewhere and their daily activities either move them toward or away from that picture.

When I was a teenager, back in the days when gas was cheap, we used to spend entire evenings driving around. We had no plan or intention of going anywhere, we just drove around and around.

I wonder how often my life reflects a similar lack of direction.

St. Paul once wrote to his favourite church and said, “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

There was a clear goal in mind. There was a sense that his life was lived in response to a call of some kind.

Without that goal, life can easily devolve into meaningless activity.

I am privileged to engage in a certain amount of speech coaching. I enjoy helping those with a meaningful message learn how to communicate it effectively.

However, I never cease to be amazed at how many speeches (or sermons) consist of a lot of words but have no direction.

It’s as if some speakers never pause to connect the dots between the words they say and the purpose they hope to accomplish by their talk. There is a crying need for a big picture to inform each sentence.

MacDonald encourages us to frequently submit our lives to several analytical questions. The purpose is to help us connect the dots between hourly or daily activity and our life’s big picture.

First, he suggests we ask, “Where am I headed, and what are the great questions that will challenge me along the way?”

Second, “What kind of person am I becoming as a result of my activity today?”

Third, “What is God expecting of me?”

This level of thinking, engaged in frequently and intentionally will keep us from putting in time filled with meaningless activity that takes us nowhere.

“The resilient life is one where a person lives every day in the pursuit of the big picture.”

Tim Schroeder is a pastor at Trinity Baptist Church and chaplain to the Kelowna Rockets and RCMP.