The Swedish writer Fredrick Backman’s 2012 debut novel A Man Called Ove is the tale of a man who sees no reason to live. After the death of his wife (the one person who brought him laughter, intimacy, and joy) and after losing his job, Ove plots his suicide. But then he’s drawn into the larger story around him: There’s a pregnant woman who needs his support, a neighbor in conflict with authorities who are trying to force him into a nursing home, and a young man estranged from his father. Ove discovers reasons to live as he moves beyond himself and toward others.
The apostle Paul describes a similar movement—how our lives take on new meaning as we’re caught up into the great purposes of God’s grand project of salvation. The apostle describes the gospel (or the “Good News about Christ”) as that “power of God at work, saving everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). This was a shocking pronouncement because Paul boldly declared how God’s interests were not, as some supposed, only for Israel but rather for both the Jew “and also the Gentile” (Romans 1:16).
As Paul explained, he felt a “great sense of obligation to people in both the civilized world and the rest of the world, to the educated and the uneducated alike” (Romans 1:14). Paul’s energy exploded with new vigor because of this revelation: God’s love and renewal is for everyone. And Paul could participate in His bold scheme.
We find our own small stories erupting with new meaning when we allow God to pull us outside ourselves and place us in the center of His work rescuing the world. As Stanley Hauerwas says, “Salvation is the delightful surprise of having your little life caught up in the purposes of God for the whole world.”
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: John 3:1-21
More:
Read 1 Timothy 2:3-5 and consider who God’s grand plan of salvation is designed to reach.
Next:
In what ways have you been tempted to live a small story? How does God’s grand project for the world reframe your life?
don777 on June 19, 2017 at 5:22 am
John 3:16 (NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
God’s plan is for all in the world. Each one of our drop will fill the bucket. But it takes each drop. So hopefully we are obedient to God for our drop. It takes all of us to make up the body. Sometimes I wrestle with God on what He wants me to do. But it is just easier to comply. There is less pain on the inside. +>i
Winn Collier on June 22, 2017 at 1:43 pm
I think God’s quite fine with the wrestling.
Gary Shultz on June 19, 2017 at 5:40 am
Hi Winn: Staying with the question, if this is what you meant, when life chugs along without too many bumps, it is very nice to coast. To enjoy what we have been given and not look to far for anything else. I think that is why drama enters the life sometimes, just like the early church, it was nice to live comfortably together. Then came persecution pushing believers out into other places, with God’s Grand Project of Salvation. It’s still easier to huddle, but that word “Grand” does have a different idea in mind. God has a different idea in mind for us. We like Paul need to be engaged in spreading the good news, God’s story of mercy, grace and love. We also see that Paul was refreshed in the company of saints that lived to be God’s witnesses. We speak the word when we can, we refresh and be refreshed with God’s people, and we press on because we have a exceedingly great heavenly Father. Life is short, we try to live “Grand”. Thanks Winn
Winn Collier on June 22, 2017 at 1:44 pm
I think it’s marvelous that even the “living Grand” is a gift.
Tom Felten on June 19, 2017 at 9:55 am
Winn, it’s so important to see the sacred nature of each moment of life . . . how even in the small things God can use us to reveal Him and His ways. May we see Him today in the amazing and the mundane! Peace.