The Hum of Life
How do you figure out your future?
Here is a related question: How often do you pay attention to your refrigerator?
(I’m sure you see the connection)
I doubt you listen intently to your refrigerator, mostly because you’ve learned how to live with it. You’ve become used to the constant warm hum along the floorboards of your home.
But I bet you’ve paid attention to it at least a couple of times in your life…mainly if you’ve ever been really quiet in your home (if you even let your home get quiet). It’s in the times we get really still, the hum of the fridge consumes the air waves within our home.
The same reality tends to happen with our questions about the future.
The questions of “What will I do?” and “Where will I go?” always hum across the floorboards of our minds. When we get still in the dead of night, we can’t shut it off. We drive ourselves crazy to the point that we can’t even eat a waffle fry from Chick-fil-A without asking ourselves if it’s in the shape of the next state we are supposed to live in.
You’re not alone. This question alone takes up a lot of space in the brain of anyone navigating the first third of life. We want answers. And I think I have an answer or two to why it bugs us so much. This is the intention of this episode, because if I had to guess, I bet you’re tired of doing the one thing we’re doing right now.
Talking it out.
We talk it out with our friends. We talk it out in our heads. We talk it out with our dog. Some of you may even talk it out to your bedroom wall.
Talking at the end of the day feels hopeless because it doesn’t feel like it moves the ball. It doesn’t change anything. Talking doesn’t do anything.
This is what I would like to talk out with you, because I’d like to offer an alternative way of handling the constant hum of questions about your future.
Here’s my suggestion, instead of talking, start listening.
Listen Up
If you want to start dialoguing with your questions about the future, one of my suggestions is you start to listen up. Literally.
Jesus gave a couple of TedTalks back in his day. One talk in particular spoke directly about the future.1 Let me sum it up for you in a fresh way:
We all specialize the art of asking, “What if?” questions about the future.
And although these concerns matter, and will always be humming in the background, they were never meant to consume all the space in your brain.
Easier said than done, right?
When is the last time the advice, “Don’t worry about it” actually helped you not worry about something? (I’m sure all it did is make you want to block that person on all forms of communication.)
I know the feeling, and Jesus did too. So here is what he suggested. Pay attention to what’s outside of you instead of what’s inside of you. The world is your evangelist. You’re not alone in navigating this world. God is in it with you just like God is with all of the world.
When is the last time you’ve listened to the birds? When is the last time you’ve listened to the breeze rush against the grass of a field?
Every day God sustains and provides nature with the resources it needs to grow. Nature is an example of God’s nature. God’s nature is to take care of nature in daily intimate ways.
And here is the point of this TedTalk I would like for you to keep your attention towards. God does this daily. Not weekly. Not monthly. Not yearly.
Daily.
This is why in a TedTalk before this one, Jesus says, “It’s worth your time praying, ‘Give us today our daily bread.’”2 This is God’s nature for us. Giving us the resources we need for sustenance and growth.
God’s way of saying, “I’m here” is through providing the food, water, and air that you cannot make yourself by snapping your fingers.
Now that this TedTalk session is over, you might be thinking, “Great, so what’s the point?”
I’m glad you asked.
The Whole Loaf
There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that this tension never goes away in our lives. The good news is that there is an invitation for maturity as you navigate the questions about your future.
Life doesn’t always set us up well for this invitation to mature. Think about it. When you went through grade school, you always knew where you were going and what you were doing next. When you finished first grade, it was pretty clear your next hill to hike was second grade. The map was pretty straightforward.
But once you get done with the societal process of puberty and grade school, the world no longer gives you a clear progression. The second third of life no longer has the same road map. The future isn’t clear.
Many times we resort to wanting the same type of map we had during the first third of life. Another way of saying this is we’re always wanting the whole loaf. We want the big picture of what we’re doing in the future. Give us the full mural and we will start painting it.
To top it off, we compare ourselves to others, who seem to have the “whole loaf” of life. They have the family. The career path. The city we want to live in some day. And here is where we don’t do ourselves a solid in life because we forget this key element.
God’s nature tends to work in the daily breadcrumbs not whole loafs. Even the people who seem to have the “whole loaf” most likely had spent a lot of time collecting bread crumbs to get there.
Let me put it to you another way. We desire for God to be like Sam’s grocery store. God gives us all we need in bulk to continue the journey. We want a Sams’ God, but oftentimes God is more like Dollar General. God gives us what we need for the day that is ahead of us. God gives us breadcrumbs. Small nudges. Small chances of growth. Small bites of subsistence. And small graces to figure out the next step ahead.
The key is to not talk ourselves blue to God and everyone else about figuring out the whole loaf of life. The key is to listen for the breadcrumbs dropping all around us that lead us into God’s preferred future.
A conversation.
A side project that flourishes.
An observation from a mentor.
A heartbreak for the least of these that won’t leave us.
An offer from a friend.
A deep sense of meaning in one facet of your job.
A consistent nudge in your times of prayer.
These are the breadcrumb ways of life. These are the ways God sustains us for today and let us know that tomorrow there will be more breadcrumbs to collect as well. Our job is to listen, discover, thank, and take another step towards the bread crumb.
We follow the breadcrumbs to be able to discover not just the bread, but the Bread of Life.
Follow The Breadcrumbs
So here is what I suggest to all you who are exhausted and weary of talking about the future of what you’re going to contribute to this world.
Put down the social media.
Detox from all the words of all the experts in the world.
Shut the laptop of never-ending shows.
And listen to the daily hum of your life.
Listen to your conversations with others. Listen to the silence of God. Listen to the lives of those who have gone before you. Listen to the observations others make around you. Listen to what your heart and mind gravitate towards in life.
Listen for the dropping of breadcrumbs.
And how do you know when you’re close to having some answers about the future? How do you know when you’re well on your way to understanding what the whole loaf looks like?
Simple. A whole loaf isn’t meant to be eaten alone in one sitting. It’s meant to be shared. A future of God’s is not a future for just one person’s benefit. It’s for everyone’s benefit.
You’ve found your future when it’s a future that exists for more than just you. It’s a future that provides for others and points to the God who provides us all our daily bread.
Now, go listen for those breadcrumbs…
References
1I’m referencing Matthew 6:25-34 in the Sermon on the Mount for those of you who are still searching Youtube.
2Matthew 6:11