My Great Object
We finally got around to watching “Amazing Grace” this week. It was an utterly satisfying film. It depicts some of the life of William Wilberforce, who was the primary force behind banning the slave trade in the whole British Empire in 1833. After 66 years of pushing, pulling, and risking his life, he died three days after the Abolition of Slavery Act had its final reading in Parliament. He had fulfilled the purpose God had given to him!
In 1787, Wilberforce called it one of the “two great objects” God had placed before him. God had made it plain to him that he was in the place he was, with the gifts he had, and the godly passion he possessed to see to it that the slave trade was abolished. But he was not in this alone! He was mentored by John Newton, the former slave trader who penned “Amazing Grace,” who helped to clarify that commission and to strengthen him to persist in it by counting on the One who called Him. He had friends like William Pitt, who would become Prime Minister of England, who challenged and encouraged him to not give up, but to pursue this mission with all his resources: time, position, treasure, strength, voice, mind, creativity. All these things were given him by God with his “great object” in mind.
I am no William Wilberforce, but God has an object for my life, too. I am in the process, at this late date in my life, of seeking insight and discernment about what that is, including paying attention to the companions and mentors in my life.
When I had children in the house, His great object for me was to help them grow out to be what He made them to be. I now have six amazing adult…”children” makes them sound small or diminished; “offspring” sounds clinical and remote; “progeny” is even less personal… (Let’s try this again.) I birthed six children who have grown, by the mercy and grace of God, to be six amazing, influential, creative, fabulous, both similar and unique adults! While I am no longer raising them, I still have a some influence on them and how they raise their own. So this “great object” is nearly complete.
But now, my husband is about to retire from the workforce, and the shape of my life will, of necessity, change. I have ideas, but whatever it is, my life will require pruning, the clearing away of the branches that are not serving my “great object.” Even Jesus said “no” to some things, to going some places, to the timing of His travels, even temptation, because they did not run toward His “great object:” to give His life as a ransom for many, to seek and save that which was lost. He came into the world with this object, and calls me to follow Him, but since I am not the Savior of the world, this is a path not a purpose. So even when I see clearly my “great object,” I will still be
Following Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
P.S. Looking for input…feel free to comment.
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