"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work." (John 4:34 NIV)
I considered Jesus’ words and was arrested with an uncomfortable truth. A servant may not grasp how their contribution affects the greater household. An employee may not know how their compliance affects the bottom line.
Several months ago, we watch the Star Wars off-shoot, Andor. The entire series follows a rebel spy’s formative years. Andor spends several episodes serving time in an Empire prison. Incarceration revolves around each pod of forty-nine men serving toiling over the repeated assembly of an unidentified object; presumably a cog in an impossibly larger system. Their task is both urgent and senseless; repeated every shift of the day, every day of the year. It doesn’t take long for the viewer to weary on Andor’s behalf.
The viewer traipses along with with the hero, slogging through episode after episode. It is only in the final credits that we see the cog make its way to its final destination. The seemingly random object serves as a critical connection in the emerging Death Star.
Let’s translate this to our real lives. God isn’t a villain and He isn’t fabricating a Death Star from the minutia of our our life, but He is assembling His good and perfect plan through the parts and pieces we don’t understand. It’s helpful to recall that the details are often confidential. We couldn’t interpret the plans even if we had them in hand! Instead, we are asked to operate in trust, functioning from day to day in the most basic belief that God is good and His will is unfolding through our obedience.
Full disclosure, the past ten days have been tough. We made this big faith move and then I came back from our whirlwind Chicago trip brutally ill. Everything stalled out. Yesterday was the first time I’d even stepped outside of the apartment all week. Unfortunately, it’s been a prolonged opportunity to stare at the ceiling (too sick to do much else) and wonder what we are doing with our lives. But this morning, Jesus Himself reminded me: my food is to do the work of the Father. If this is when and where He has placed us, then I can bring Him glory by being obedient amidst it.
Jesus said this to His disciples and I imagine He’d reminded Himself many times. There were surely whole side missions when it felt like His messiahship had gone off the rails entirely; as a refugee in Egypt, famished in the wilderness, weeping in shadows of Gethsemane. Jesus learned to preach to His own soul before He preached to others. His food was doing the will of His Father. The ever-faithful Son of God shows us how to stay on track..
"This, then, is how you should pray: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:0-10 NIV)
Lord, please help us honor You here a now, in this season of unknowing and upheaval. We recall, the bread and butter of our existence is bringing You glory. We may not see how this chapter contributes to Your greater gospel, but You surely do and that’s enough comfort for us to keep trusting. Have Your way, O God. Amen.