Right now you're in a unique but not uncommon moment in your life. You're at some point in your day, casting your eyes over words and wondering if they're worth you persevering. Only you will know with any detail what is around you, what sort of screen you're looking at, what you're wearing, what you've eaten today.
Take a moment to think over the events of the day so far, how they've made you feel, whether things are going well, what's playing on your mind.
It's probably not a very significant day in the grand scheme of things. And the thing is, tomorrow you won't have much memory of these exact feelings. Next week you will probably have forgotten even reading this – unless something sparks your memory of it, a related topic, something a friend says, whatever it might be. But with each successive day, your knowledge of your own life is ebbing away.
It's a bit like zooming out of Google maps. For a while you can make out rooftops and trees, if you know the street then there will be familiar bends and places. But soon you're seeing the whole suburb at a glance and the details are gone. Keep going out to the city and the state and even the details of the suburbs start to swim. Now you're taking months in one sweep, even years. When you think about it, whole years of your life are usually summed up by what job you had, or year of study you were in. The individual days are all but lost.
Now, on the one hand that makes every moment insignificant. You could very well say to yourself amidst some awkwardness or difficulty, "this is just a rooftop, don't worry, soon you won't even be able to see it anymore". But that cold rational truth doesn't help for some reason. It's very hard to wrap yourself up with a fact.
Yet on the other hand when we look back on our lives, even though the significance may dilute with time, none of us lives at an altitude of ten thousand feet. We live each day as it comes: one meal at a time, one minute at a time, one moment at a time. Even if the details of the day fade with time, we can't get away from the fact that it is days we are comprised of, and it is minutes that we exist within.
So we find ourselves at a strange double vision for our lives. Having felt the futility of these daily experiences we might be tempted to run to the city-level of the map. But not only will we find ourselves trying to reach a place that doesn't exist – like a child trying to trying to jump on the head of their own shadow. But even if you could arrive at such a place, it would turn out to be entirely comprised by the sum of these moments and minutes.
All of this I think to be a beautiful mercy. Rather than an endless relay between spheres of significance, we are given scope to live small, daily moments that contribute to a life.
In the absence of some momentous life-decision, we have countless opportunities to live faithfully. Because we aren't first called to live a notable life, we are called to walk in love with the things and people and opportunities that we have.
In fact, we can't aim at having the total count for anything unless we first see the details rightly. This is a double-edged sword. Not only do we form ourselves and our lives in the moments of the day, we also can waste those instances too. If we see the small level details as inconsequential we will build a life of ruin comprised entirely of what seemed to be very small bad decisions. Even great swathes of history are formed by the moments of choice and the perseverance of those who sought change and renown.
This too is the gospel. That the faithful life and sacrifice of Jesus, is a time-bound moment that changes your life, the world, and the course of history as it spans eternity in both directions. It is the condescension of God from infinites to moments, in a plan of rescue and glory that took place in dust and sweat, in atoms and thoughts and the ticking of time.
Its significance runs backwards and forwards in your life, completely changing your identity and destiny, while also infiltrating even the space between your breaths.
Now at the end of this moment of your life, where you've read these words at this point in your day, you can be shaped even now from what Jesus did. And moving to your next task you have opportunity to shape who you will be, and to live well among these rooftop moments that contribute to the sprawling city of your life.
Sam Manchester is currently a theology student with an inescapable sociology degree behind him. In an attempt to reconcile the two, he reflects and writes about their coalescence in everyday life.
Sam's archive of articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/sam-manchester.html