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Finding Your Mission in the Moment
Christopher Nolan is one of the top movie directors of our day. In addition to directing the two, highly successful, recent Batman movies, “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight”, he melted audiences’ minds this summer with “Inception”, a maze-like thriller that explored the world of dreams within dreams within dreams. Before all of that, Nolan created the moderately successful suspense film, “Memento”, which follows a man named Leonard who has amnesia and can’t form new memories. The film’s story is told out of sequence, alternating confusingly between the end of the story and the beginning until the story meets in the middle and everything makes sense.
This passage of scripture is a bit like “Memento”. “For this reason”, Paul is “the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—“. What is the reason? What is he doing because of that? It’s a very strange way to begin a “chapter”, though of course the “chapters” were defined well after Paul’s time. It all makes sense if you read the passage before and the passage after and put the verse in context.
Paul has just finished explaining that the blood of Christ erases the long-standing separation between Jews and Gentiles. As a former Jewish persecutor (murderer?) of Christians, Paul has a unique position to speak on this matter. He proceeds to elaborate on how God has called him to reach Gentiles, and unfolds how clearly Jesus came to make Gentiles heirs to God’s kingdom, equal to his chosen people, the Jews.
Much like Paul, God has a purpose for your life that may not make sense if you just look at the current moment. He wants to use the best and worst things you have ever done, for His purposes and glory. He has a mission for the rest of your life that starts in the present. Paul saw his mission clearly, even writing from a jail cell. Prayerfully consider life experience, the Bible, and Godly counsel, and we can seize upon His mission for our lives.
Dear lord please help us to know that you will work our lifes all together for our good. Help us not to focus on the immediate but to see more of the whole.
Regards,
Phillip
Great reference Rob. I have that problem myself. I wonder daily what is my mission at the moment, but may understand more at a later time where it is not clear at this moment.
Love this! thanks for helping to clarify Paul, a somewhat confusing writer to me simply because he packs so much meaning into each sentence – even if they are really long ones, like Alan talked about last Sunday. Loved Memento and can’t wait to see Inception – it will remind me of unpacking and processing Paul’s messages to us!