My Work Here is Done

There are few things more satisfying to me than the hard-earned exhale of “my work here is done.”

As Americans, we are bred in a culture that seeks the sweet smell of victory. We love to set our sights on a task and accomplish it. We pursue the life of the achiever; it is an indescribable high to successfully begin a project and over the course of hours, weeks, or decades see it to its final completion.

However, someone once encouraged me to have a dream “so big it could not be accomplished in my lifetime.” What this person failed to mention is the wrenching heartache that accompanies such a dream.

Not long ago, a thought stopped me in my tracks: my dream for racial reconciliation will not be realized on this side of eternity. In fact, ever since the fruit was plucked from Eden’s tree and the last stone fell from Babel’s tower, humanity has been fighting this very battle.

One of my good friends, Seth Trimmer, recently preached a message that resounded with me and impacted my thoughts toward my dream. He told a story found in Numbers, chapter 13. After wandering in the desert for years, the Israelites have finally arrived at the Promised Land. Moses sends out twelve spies to survey the land, but when the men come back, they report that although the fruit is good, the land is swarming with seemingly unconquerable giants.

However, there is one spy with a different opinion than the rest: “Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it’” (Num. 13:30). This is a vivid picture of what our mission is like today.

We are strangers and aliens (1 Peter 2:11-12) to this land, in it but not of it (John 17:16, Romans 12:2). We are the spies. The promised land in the story represents eternity. Everything around us is telling us that it cannot be accomplished, that we cannot possibly have a taste of Heaven on Earth, but we can!

Will we be able to experience the fullness of our eternity with Jesus in the temporal? No. But what we can experience is a taste of it. We must make it our mission to bring the fruits of Heaven into a culture that so desperately hungers for them. It is our responsibility to bring love, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, steadfastness, self-control, and all of the fruits that come from being heavenly minded. The rich and delicious taste of reconciliation, if only even for a moment, is both worth the risk and deserving of the fight. In our churches, communities, relationships, and families, our mission is laid out for us.

I can promise you we will not see its completion until we reach the other side of eternity and are in perfect community with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And I can also promise that, if you are truly committed, the heartache will at times seem unbearable. To fight with everything we have and to know that victory might not come until long after we are gone is something only few can do.

In the story of the spies and the giants, only one man set his aim to overtake the giants, to risk it all for the sake of bringing the people to the fruit. That was his story. Will it be yours?