Having a good cup of coffee and a good friend on hand makes for a wonderful combination (perhaps only better if instead of coffee it were beer). Coffee shop banter often digresses into the solving of the world’s problems by envisioning grandiose and benevolent world domination schemes that begin, “If I were king of the world…” This morning was markedly different, however, not because we decided to talk about something other than the world’s problems, but we began the conversation with “If I were king of my own life…” We talked about it in our own personal ways, our own personal hopes not to rule others, but to simply rule and live our own lives.
Among other things, it became quite apparent in our discussion that modern man has become so hell-bent on wanting to “earn a living” that he has forgotten what it is to enjoy a life—to actually make “life” a verbal form beyond mere earnings, but to actually be “living.” Living is not something you earn at an office job or through any occupation, but it is a vocation—a heeding to God’s call and will in your life. Living is not something done in the security of a paycheck or a position, but is precisely what you do in the uncertainty. To live is not to settle into a place to call your secure end, but, rather, it is to settle for a place from which to eagerly, anxiously, and wearily begin. Like a plant, sprouting roots is the beginning of a critical upward journey that is fraught with danger and abandons certitude for adventure.
Modern man, however, wants to be a seed—the only certain and undangerous phase of a plant’s life. Not having roots is easy. The unblossoming seed is nothing more than a plant too afraid to live. Yet in our offices, our uniforms, our quaint little cliques, our weekend adventures, we have resolved to make being-a-seed something laudable and fulfilling. We resolve to tuck away more and more means to ensure we have enough energy to survive within (or without) before we ever even breach the subject of breaking forth-- to settle for the occasional adventure as opposed to the life-long one. Least we forget, however, that the life-blood of a plant is not in the seed, but in the soil its roots reach out to and in the sunlight its leaves span to absorb.
We have so befuddled the English language as to call this uneventful occupational, seedling mentality, “ambitious.” Meanwhile, we call the natural life roaming the black dirt and open air for the means to make it through the day (the life of vocation), “unambitious.” Yet how ambitious must we really be to be what the world calls unambitious?! We have the audacity to say happiness is actually quite simple and it is not the rat-race, it is not king-of-the-mountain—rather, it is king of your homestead. We have the audacity to say less is more, that simplicity is fulfilling, that a tenuous task and the constant upkeep of a home is as close to Heaven we could imagine. We reject penthouses for working the soil, we reject fashion shows for our own wife, we reject the entertainment industry for our own families—in short we reject total comfort for relative suffering. We have the audacity to want to live simply, not to rule over anymore than our small corner of the world. We have the audacity to say the small family farmer is not only acceptable, but also beautiful. We have the audacity to say that having the world is too much, that actually a small amount is enough, and, further, that enough is enough. We have the audacity to say that having to pray for good weather for you and your family’s success and survival is actually the true meaning of happiness.
What we ultimately discover in living humble lives, by rejecting worldly kings and assuming the role ourselves, is not that we were right to call ourselves ‘king;’ but that we were actually dead wrong. We learn how to properly begin any discussion about solving the world’s problems. Surprisingly, it is not with “If I were king of the world…” or “If I were king of my life..:” but instead we realize how true and faithfully we must say, “If I let God be king of my life…” And from that point, my friends, you will find the only ultimate certainty, the only absolute clarity and security, and only then will you grow into the magnificent thing He has planned. Only then will you witness “the miracle of your own life.“
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