Blowing Your Bugle, Beating Your Drum

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday I shared a personal anecdote with you about an experience I had playing the bugle and then the bass drum in a marching band.

I think that it can serve as some kind of parable for our lives. Think about it. Isn’t it true that we all have ideas and dreams about what our lives should be like? But then, through the circumstances of life, we find ourselves ‘drafted’ into things we never anticipated.

Painful & broken relationships.
Long working hours.
An unwanted pregnancy, or the struggle to fall pregnant.
Single parenthood.
Family living far away.
Illness.

And so we settle in and learn to play the tune given to us, accepting that that’s just the way it is and there’s nothing else for us to play. Like just 2 notes on the bugle. And many people assume that that’s all there is, and try to make peace with their mediocre lives, but they can’t.
Because we’ve all been made with a bigger purpose in mind than this.

Others try to take hold of their lives to make something more of it. Which of course is commendable. They find a drum and start to beat it – and maybe even a flashy leopard skin to put on. And so they start marching through life to the beat of their own drum – building their career, accumulating possessions & prestige & power, moving up in the world.

But in the end this too will only disappoint, because invariably life catches up with us. And sooner or later we’ll discover a strange paralysis creeping over us, a tiredness that makes it harder and harder just to keep up, reducing our creative efforts to nothing more than the frenetic beating of our little drums. And for what? We’ve been made with a bigger purpose in mind than this.

Hear this good news. That bigger purpose for which we’ve all been made lies beyond ourselves. It is our purpose for sure, but it lies beyond us.

It is bigger than our capacity to imagine.
It is greater than our power to comprehend.
It is further than our ability to reach.

Which means that if we are to take hold of our true purpose, we need to be helped. And praise God, help is at hand.

It comes in the person of Jesus. Who enters our world and makes the boldest claim. He says, “I have come so that you might have life in all of its fullness.” And then he says, “Follow me.” It’s like he’s saying, ‘Put down that silly bugle, stop the futile beating of that bass drum. Your true purpose is much, much bigger than that. Rather, come with me and listen for the trumpet-call of God’s Kingdom. Come with me and march to the beat of a different drum.”

And over the ages, as people have responded to that simple invitation to follow Jesus, so they have found purpose for their lives, and a significance greater than they could ever have imagined.

The same can be true for you. I can’t tell each one of you what your specific purpose in this life is, but I can tell you who to follow if you want to find out. If you’re serious about that, then recognise this self-evident truth.

Following Jesus means being willing to move.

That’s a consistent theme throughout the scriptures, starting with Abram. God said to him, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.’ And Abram was willing to move, and so discovered his purpose – to be the father of a great nation and a source of blessing to all the peoples of the earth.

Jesus’ invitation to follow him requires a radical and decisive response. It requires the willingness to move, to leave behind the things that hold you back in a purposeless kind of existence. Maybe it’s possessions or prestige or power. Maybe it’s a negative attitude, or a bad habit, or some deep-seated prejudice. Maybe it’s even the job you’re in, or the career you’ve chosen, or the lifestyle you’re leading. Maybe it’s a comfort zone you’ve grown accustomed to. Jesus said, ‘If you put your hand to the plough and then look back,’ hankering back to your old life, then you will miss out on the new life of God’s kingdom.

If you’re serious about following Jesus it means being willing to move, no matter how costly that may seem. But the blessing that it will bring is beyond anything that we could possibly imagine on our own!

PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord, you call me to follow you. It’s a call to let go of my own agenda, to lay aside my own futile attempts to find meaning in my life, and to trust you in a radical way. Give me wisdom to discern your call, and courage to obey. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Genesis 12:1-4

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

Mark 1:16-20

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake — for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.