Your Extraordinary Life is the Life You Have Been Given

Standing on one foot, I counted seconds and looked out the kitchen window. A downy woodpecker paused in drilling for his breakfast, almost as if he sensed my gaze, and the leaves around him glistened with the morning’s heavy dew. My mind-numbing morning exercise routine has made me an avid observer of the world outside my window. Movement intended to improve my balance and maintain strength and flexibility is also increasing my curiosity and my ability to observe small seasonal changes and to appreciate God’s subtle gifts of natural loveliness.

Some days, though, to be honest, it all feels pretty inconsequential. Zooming toward “retirement age,” it’s apparent to me that I haven’t exactly had a stellar career (and I have no intention of retiring from being a grandmother!) If I had to provide evidence that I have lived an extraordinary life, I’m afraid I’d be hard-pressed!

How about you? Did you ever think you might have been meant to live an extraordinary life? Did your academic gifts, musical accomplishments, or sporting prowess point to future greatness that hasn’t really panned out?

Of course, this begs the question: What constitutes an extraordinary life?

The Extraordinary Goal of True Maturity

Paul’s letter to the Romans is both deeply theological and intensely practical, so by the time we reach Romans 12, he has already covered the importance of obedience and the need to kill sin, lest it be killing you. He informs us that God’s design, all his good plans and purposes for your life and mine, have more to do with maturity than magic, more to do with wisdom than the WOW factor.

“Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands, and moves towards the goal of true maturity.”(Romans 12:2 JBP)

Was I meant to live an extraordinary life?

“True maturity” means living the life that was meant for me.
And what does that mean? It’s almost as if Paul was listening in to our conversation here when he wrote Romans 12:3:

“As your spiritual teacher I give this piece of advice to each one of you. Don’t cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or your importance, but try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities by the light of the faith that God has given to you all.”

As Wendell Berry has said succinctly: “We live the given life, and not the planned.”

Living my given life, I have been led, and I’m certain that I continue to be led. I was reminded of this recently in a newsletter that quoted from The Hobbit: “When [Bilbo Baggins] had left Hobbiton he had wandered off aimlessly, along the Road or in the country on either side; but somehow he had steered all the time towards Rivendell.”

I am being “steered” by a Good Shepherd. My exercising, garden-growing, substitute-teaching, grandchild-loving life is my own extraordinary life. It is the life God has meant for me.

God’s skillful steering work is evident in the way I met my husband, the writing and teaching ministry I enjoy now, and even in our winding up living on this country hill. There hasn’t been a detailed map, and often I have seen the work of God only retroactively as I have looked back over my shoulder in amazement.

Have you found this to be true as well?
Have you ever felt as if you weren’t living the extraordinary life you had expected?
Do you ever feel lost, as if maybe you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way?
Are you aware that your given life is the life you were meant to live?