Turning Overflowing Lives into Life Overflowing

There was an elderly woman named Virginia in one of our former churches who once said during a meeting, as we were listing things that required attention: When will it ever end?!  (She has sense passed, so I suspect maybe she now knows the answer to her question.)  But my wife and I often quote sweet Virginia when we're dealing with life’s seemingly endless “to-do” list, balancing jobs, children, ministry, and whatever else a given week brings that we didn’t plan for on Monday morning.   

On one hand, I think maybe the answer to Virginia’s question is: Never.  Now, I admit, that sounds a bit depressing at first; but think about it.  We’re alive, and life by its nature is dynamic and active. If we aren’t constantly moving and changing, we begin to decay and die.

But at the same time, I relate to the angst in that beloved saint’s question.  The struggle is real. I’m a task-oriented guy, and I too long to “complete the list” and be finished, with no more worries.  But it never seems to happen—this side of eternity anyway.  

Jesus once said to his followers: “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly”—John 10:10. Abundance conveys a sense of overflowing or filled. What was Jesus saying to them—and to us—through these words?  Jesus, being God, knew we’d all be living full lives.  In some sense, that’s the nature of life as a human being on this third rock from the Sun.  But I think he was promising something more than a full life; he was promising life to the full.  

Ask anyone how they are doing these days and before the conversation gets too far you are likely to hear: I’m very busy.  Very few people are bored these days, that’s for sure.  Life keeps us hopping to say the least as we seek to satisfy all the callings on our life:  e.g., spouse, parent, friend, church member, employee.  We’re all living full—if not overflowing—lives; but are we living life to the full? How do we find what Jesus promised he came to give his followers amid an überbusy life?  Can it be done, or are we destined to struggle with a nagging sense of unfulfillment all our days. 

I believe this is where call (or vocation) comes into the equation.  Yes, there are many calls placed on us, and we have a responsibility to respond to them.  However, there’s something unique that each of us was put on this Earth to do.  We can and will do other things out of necessity, or even out of choice, but we won’t feel fully alive until, in the words of Elrond from Return of the King, we “become who we were born to be“. The Elven Lord’s words resonate with those of the saints of Christendom.

“Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee”—Augustine

“The glory of God is a [human being] fully alive…’— Irenaeus

We find abundant living as we seek out who God created us to be—and once we discern it, we seek to become it, with all of our heart, mind, and strength.

I can speak with most authority of my own experience. I am fairly certain at this point that my call is to storytelling.  If you are reading this article, you most likely know that I like to write.  Some of you have even told me that you enjoy what I write.  Thank you for your kind words.   It’s always an encouragement to hear from others that what we think we enjoy doing is resonating with others.  

In an essay about vocation, Natalia Ginzburg once wrote: "Words are the only tools that some to fit in my hands.  When I've tried to do any other kind of work, it has been with discomfort and ineptitude to the point of comedy."  That certainly rings true with a guy like me.  While I envy what some “handymen” (I think of Neil and Phil at my church, for example) can do with a set of tools, it’s just not me.  When something breaks in my house, I usually have break down and call someone and pay them to fix it.  Like Ginzburg, the “tool” I seem to wield most efficiently is a pen—or, more often these days, a keyboard.   

So, writer’s write. Go forth and write stories… End of article. 

I wish it was that straightforward.  

Life is something of a paradox.  The very raw material that shapes me and the stories I write is the same substance that opposes my efforts, and makes it a challenging to “have time” to get the stories written.  

Nature itself seems to generate forces that resist unimpeded flows of energy.  In mechanics, there is friction, which works to slow an object in motion, and in electronics, there is resistance, which opposes flow of electrical current through a circuit.  My experience is that there is a similar “force” that opposes spiritual growth.   If you believe as I do, that there is an Enemy, who works counter to the interests of God, then it stands to reason that this entity is the ultimate source of spiritual resistance.  If it’s true that we are most fully alive—and living life to the full as Jesus intended—when we are living out our call, then our Enemy has a vested interest in us not achieving that state.  It should therefore come as no surprise that our endeavors to pursue our call would face stiff opposition, or resistance.  Things that at first seem like random acts that happen in life may in fact be intentional (coordinated) opposition from the Enemy of our Soul, who is threatened by what we will become if we were able to more intentionally focus on the pursuit of our call. Does what I describe here seem “over the top” spiritualizing of random events, or does it resonate with your personal experience?

Last year I took an online Spiritual Writing taught by a Catholic author named Jessica Mesman Griffith.  During one of the weeks, we discussed “Writing as Work and Vocation”.  In her lecture, Jessica shared about her own sense of being called to write. Her words resonate deeply with my own experience.  She talked about how she has known the call was there since she was very young.  So have I.  She said it wasn't until much later that she realized writing could be a spiritual calling. Me too.   

She also said in her lecture that even though she knows she is called to write, that doesn't mean it automatically happens without her putting forth effort.  “Writing for me even if it comes 'naturally' in that it uses an inborn, God-given facility and love for storytelling, requires single-mindedness."   

Jessica’s words here remind me of a Dallas Willard quote: “Grace is not opposed to effort.  Grace is opposed to earning.  Earning is an attitude; effort is an action.”   

Life owes us nothing; we don’t earn our call; we must put forth effort to achieve our dreams.

Fulfilling our call usually doesn’t just happen at random. The natural flow of life tends to drift toward disorder—and away from our destiny.  We need to take intentional action to move toward it—and expect to encounter resistance when we do.

As Jessica put it in her lecture: "Vocations are not necessarily easy to live into.  The one called to priesthood still enters the priesthood and does so at great personal cost.  So does the one called to Olympic athletics."  So true...  Pursuing our call—whatever it is, will be costly.  

Consider for example the call all believers have in common, the universal call to “carry our cross and follow Jesus”—Luke 9:23-24.  Jesus warns his early followers that following through on that call is going to be hard.   The road will rarely be easy, and followers need to “count the cost” before they commit to the journey—Luke 14:25-34.  And despite that warning from the start, when the going got tough, many followers turned back—although the Twelve were among those who persisted—John 6:60-66.  But on that fateful night in the garden when Jesus was arrested, even his closest friends denied him, betrayed him, and abandoned him, fleeing into the Jerusalem night.  Of course, that was not the end of the story; there was redemption after the resurrection, but in that difficult moment, following through with their calling to follow Jesus “to the end” proved too difficult—Mark 14:43-51.

Likewise, pursuing our individual calls will be difficult… but is also worthwhile. When I get in the flow of writing it’s hard to describe how it feels.  The Universe feels “right” for a while.  Time still flows around me but I can lose track.  (In fact, it’s happening right now as I write this article!)  For better or worse, I am completely absorbed in my world. But it’s hard to sustain that state for very long without some external call intruding—sometimes it’s literally a phone call from my wife.

.Jessica said that she frequently uses Ginzburg’s words to remind herself why she does what she does:  "My vocation is to write." Others have expressed to her that they benefit from what she labors to write.   I often try to remind myself of the same thing: My vocation is to tell stories through writing.  When I want to throw in the towel, I think of kind words from people (at my church) like Adelia, Lucy, and Nancy, and others, who say they like reading what I write—and even miss it when I haven’t written in a while.  It’s moments like this when I remember that my call to write not just for me. It benefits others—and ultimately my being more fully alive is to the glory of God. 

I am Facebook friends with Jessica.  I know she is raising two children just like me, and has daily challenges she has to deal with as she tries to be a writer.  She also has to pay bills, like I do.  She gets paid to do writing that requires significant amounts of her time and energy, but doesn't necessarily fulfill her as much.  Oh, how I relate to this! 

While the writing (and editing) I do for NASA “pays the bills”, and I find some fulfillment doing it, I am still left with that internal restlessness, a pervasive sense that there is something more God has for me—but with precious little time and energy to pursue my dreams.  There’s this constant struggle to “find time to write”, but then when I do take time to write, I feel guilty because I feel a bit selfish spending time writing, that I could have spent doing something “more productive”.  Indeed, it can be a vicious cycle! 

Jessica’s story serves as an inspiration for me, because despite resistance in her life, she has managed to overcome the resistance in her life and publish several books—and teaches Spiritual Writing courses.  Her story is uniquely hers—but elements of it are similar to my own.  She has turned spiritual writing into what she does for a living.  I would like to do the same thing.  I could see myself teaching classes in writing as Jessica does, but one must “earn” the right to do so by being a published author, and for now that dream remains elusive.  I know that with God all things are possible—but I know it’s going to require effort on my part too.  This is the growing edge for me, where the rubber is hitting the road and the resistance seems overwhelming some days.  The dream is real; the means to have it come true exists; but my willingness to “follow-through” and build a bridge between dreams and means via intention seems lacking.  

So this is a bit of my story, and the specific details of your story will be different.  But I have a hunch many of you might relate to this struggle to turn our overflowing lives into life overflowing. I think it's part of being human. Perhaps you get hung up at the same point that I do? Or maybe you have a different take?  Do you even feel God calls you at all, or is that just for certain special professions like priests and pastors?

May God help us persevere, despite the very real resistance, to become who we were born to be.