So much is written about having purpose and living with intentionality, and I am one of the loudest cheerleaders of this kind of thinking. But I find it interesting and persuasive that Jesus, in some of His last words on earth, after His resurrection, expressed a different way. We know it as the Great Commission. “Go, therefore, into all the world and make disciples of all nations,…” (Matt 28:19). What could express more purpose than this! But the actual Greek from the original language gives an entirely different flavor. The verb we translate as “Go,” in Greek is a participle and would best be translated, “As you are going.” The command is to “make disciples,” but we do that “as we are going into all the world.” We make disciples while we are running errands. We make disciples while we are making a living. We do that while in our exercise class and around the dinner table.
All of life is infused with the possibility of the sacred. Every moment, every encounter, every struggle is our Great Commission, our calling from God. Bring that perspective to your calendar, to your work, to your play, to your friendships, and your conflicts. Richard Halverson and my good friend, Pete Bowell, encourage us to remember that “we go nowhere by accident.” C.S. Lewis challenges us to consider, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” We are all eternal beings. Our faith is not something we turn on and turn off, depending on the situation. We are called, commissioned, to be wherever, whenever, “as we are going” people. This is our high calling.
