“A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit”. — D. Elton Trueblood
“While walking along a road, a sage saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked him: ‘How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?’ ‘Seventy years,’ replied the man. The sage then asked: ‘Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?’ The man answered: ‘I found a fruitful world, because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise I am planting for my children.’” — Babylonian Talmud Ta'anit 23a I have been reading Carpe Diem Redeemed by Os Guinness. In chapter 5 Guinness discusses the flow between past, present and future that we sometimes overlook when we are overly-focused on the demands of the present. Guinness speaks of “short-termism”, which is how we tend to think if we allow ourselves to be swept along with the current of our culture. We live in a world that has forgotten how to plant trees. I suspect that many of us no longer think deeply enough about how the past affects our present and future, and how our decisions will affect the world that we will leave behind. To the extent that we have allowed our culture to push us into its mold, most of us have probably been far too preoccupied with the “here-and-now”. Sometimes we need to stop and ask ourselves: “Will the generations that follow us bless us or curse us?” “Are we passing something onto the next generation that they will treasure enough to want to pass on to the generation that follows them?” Some of our grandparents were immigrants from other countries, who came to the US, worked very hard, and died, having never seen the fruit of their labors. They didn’t expect to see it, because they didn’t do it for themselves. The came to the US to “make a better life” for their children and their grandchildren, at their own expense. They boarded overloaded ships and took the risky voyage to America, a strange land where people spoke a strange language and had strange customs and where there were huge steel bridges and very tall buildings that scraped the sky, and worked hard in very hostile environments so their children could go to college and get decent jobs and break the cycle of poverty that had existed in their home countries. They didn’t do it for themselves. They did it for all future generations. Missionaries move to foreign countries, make their way into remote tribal settlements in jungles and deserts where there is no electricity or running water so they can preach the Gospel to people who may well reject it, placing their own lives in jeopardy and throwing away any possibility of a comfortable lifestyle for themselves. They don’t do it for themselves. They do it for the glory of God, and for the sake of those who will hear, and for the many generations who will follow. Relief workers leave the comforts of home and move into remote villages where they build hospitals and schools so that present and future generations will have adequate healthcare and education. They work in refugee settlements so that those who are pushed from country to country will be able to survive until they can find a homeland— if they find a homeland. They work in inner cities, bringing hope into some very dark places where poverty and injustice are great and where hope is in short supply. They don’t do it for themselves. They do it for the sake of those who need them, and the many generations that will follow. They are fitting into a plan that is much larger than themselves. I like the motto of New York City Relief: “These things we do that others may live”. This doesn’t mean that in order to think in terms of the impact that we are having on future generations, we need to become a missionary or a relief worker. This does not require a major career change, unless God is calling us to that. This is a change of mindset that results in a change of lifestyle. It’s a way of thinking and a way of being that manifests itself in a way of doing. It’s a thousand decisions that we make every day, at our present jobs, at our present schools, with our present friends and neighbors and family, in our present circumstances. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is only for those who have a “really big calling”. This is for the small stuff, like having a conversation or writing a letter or praying a prayer or writing a song or planting a tree. We all have a calling. We all need to fit into God’s cosmic plan. We all need to find our role. What does it take to live this kind of lifestyle? It takes being willing to abandon the quest for wealth, power, and pleasure in the “here-and-now”. It takes self-sacrificial investment into the needs of people, always with an eye toward future generations. It requires a sustained effort to take the well-being of others seriously, even if our own well-being must be sacrificed in the process. We’re not used to thinking this way, and we’re not used to living this way, but if we are open to it, the Christmas story can help us to regain our perspective. Let’s think about the Christmas story for a moment: Mary had a story that no one would believe. She was betrothed to the man of her dreams, but everything changed in a moment when she said “yes” to God’s strange plan. She would be misunderstood and ridiculed, she would have a difficult life, and then her heart would be pierced with great sorrow. She didn’t do it for herself. She did it for the sake of fulfilling her part in God’s great plan, and for the sake of all future generations; and all future generations have called her blessed. Joseph needed to play his part in a drama that was bigger than he was. He was getting married to a beautiful young maiden, and probably was looking forward to producing a tribe of beautiful Jewish children and grandchildren and showing them off at the synagogue. This is not the way he would have chosen it. He would be raising a son who would be his but not his, and who would be rejected by the synagogue. Why did he go along with such a strange plan? He didn’t do it for himself. He knew he had a part of God’s great plan that he needed to fulfill. He did it for future generations. Kings came and bowed down before the cradle. What an oxymoron. Kings don’t bow down before anyone, let alone a baby; their subjects bow down to them. They followed the star because they believed that some great event was happening in the cosmic order of things that had nothing to do with their own personal pursuits, but with another king born in another land. The kings came and found the baby and bowed down, because they realized that they were in the presence of a greater king. They were a part of a great cosmic plan that was bigger than their own kingly but puny ambitions, and they were humble enough to recognize their small part in a very great story, and so they followed the star, and they bowed before the infant king in the rickety cradle in the shabby stable on a chilly night in a faraway town on the outskirts of a weary city, surrounded by barn animals. Shepherds left their flocks and listened to the song of the angels, and then went and reported what they had heard to the people of the surrounding villages. No one wants a shepherd to be their neighbor, friend or son-in-law. How did lowly shepherds, probably considered the least important people in town who could find no respectable means of employment, become the first missionaries? They found themselves caught up in a story that had to be told— and so they told it. They were a part of a story, and they know that it was their calling and destiny to do their part to make it known. We know the story today because they reported it. Lowly shepherds had a big part in the story, and today we still remember them. How could anyone have possibly known that this baby was the self-emptying Son of God, who came to earth not for his own purposes, but to honor and obey his Father and to give his life a ransom for many, to sacrifice his life for the salvation of all who would believe, to lay down his life for his friends? He didn’t do it for Himself. He laid aside his heavenly privileges and came to earth as a man so that he could die on a cross in self-sacrificial love. He did it for the sake of His Father, and for the sake of His friends, and for the sake of all future generations who would trust in Him and follow in His ways. We each have a small part to play in a great cosmic story, but we will miss our part if we allow our culture to tell us that the pursuits of power, wealth and immediate pleasure are more important than the pursuit of knowing God and walking in His ways, for the sake of the glory of His Name, and for the sake of all future generations who will learn to walk in His ways. We need to abandon our own selfish pursuits if we want to invest our lives into the things that really matter. We need to do it for the glory of God. We need to do it for the sake of all future generations. Even if we are the last generation to appear on the earth before the return of the Lord, the decisions that we make now will affect the life of the world to come in ways that are yet unseen. We need to learn what it means to plant a tree under whose shade we will never sit. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13-16) [Sources: Trueblood quote: https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2017/08/26/a-society-grows-great-when-old-men-plant-trees-in-whose-shade-they-know-they-shall-never-sit-an-ancient-greek-proverb/comment-page-1; Talmud quote: https://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/tree-planting-ritual; Scripture quote: Hebrews 11:13-16]. [This post was inspired by reading chapter 5 of Carpe Diem Redeemed by Os Guinness].
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