When Your Role Feels Small

I listened to a podcast recently and the host was interviewing a woman who was dreaming big and living it out.  Her personality, and even her voice, was as big as her dreams.  She was colorful and vibrant and contagious.

I’m captivated by those personalities, arrested by that brand of dream chaser.

In short, she was a Hollywood movie producer and her husband was an attorney.  One day she became aware of the lack of clean water in a third world country, so she hopped a plane to check it out.  Her heart was captivated by the needs in that country and she felt called to do something.  So she returned home, quit her job and took to the life-saving work of raising money for clean water across the globe.  Since then she has taken many flights across the ocean to help these people and has even taken her family along so her kids can understand the need and the mission of their family.

Wow, huh?  I’m attracted to these stories like a magnet.  My heart starts beating faster and I want to know where I go to sign up for that.  Really.  I want to do those things.  I want to hop the plane, clean the water, and adopt all the babies.  I’m in.

I forwarded the podcast to a friend.

You have gotta hear this story!

She listened and offered a deflated reply.  I can’t even relate.  I’m here.  With my own babies.  Lots of them.  And sure her story sounds great, but my husband isn’t an attorney.  Hopping planes and quitting jobs isn’t an option for most people.  It’s great for her, but pretty hard to relate from where I sit.

Oh yeah, that.

I have that too.  No more babies, but these four kids, 11 and under.  They still need so much of me.  And it’s not always flashy and exciting.  Actually, it rarely is.  It looks like discipline – for them and for me.  It looks like slow progress and lots of messes.  It looks like diligence and patience, endless meals and not enough sleep, ever.

Last week I was reading about Paul in Acts 23.  His life and story are flashy and fascinating.  If Paul were alive today, he’d make a great podcast interview.  Brutalizing Christians, blinding conversion, brave preacher, the plots against him, his articulate arguments, not to mention the acts of faith and healing – it’s quite the story.

But that is not what I happened to notice in Acts 23 last week.  My mind stopped on a smaller player in the story – Paul’s nephew.  His story doesn’t fill chapters and books, just a couple verses.

The story goes something like this.  Paul’s preaching was causing an uproar among the Jewish people in Jerusalem, accusations were flying and for his own protection the commander had him bound and held in the barracks.  While he was imprisoned, a group of more than 40 Jews made a secret pact to kill Paul.  This wasn’t a light suggestion or random discussion, this was an oath, a vow to not eat anything, until Paul was dead.

Now, Paul’s nephew, who we know very little about, caught word of the plot.  It’s assumed Paul’s nephew was young, in his early 20’s maybe.  He may have been in Jerusalem to receive his education, we don’t really know.  But do you remember how much of the world you had figured out at 20?  Do you remember how confident you were as you just began to stand on your own two feet in the world?

When Paul’s nephew heard of the plot to ambush his uncle he went straight to Paul.  Paul called a centurion and asked him to take his nephew directly to the commander.  From there Paul’s nephew unfurled the plot to kill Paul and his uncle’s life was spared.

And we never hear of the nephew again.

 

Maybe he went on to do great things with his life – flashy and fabulous things like his uncle.  Or maybe he did quiet things, faithful, persevering and barely noticed things, that God called him to do.  We don’t know.

But what we do know is amidst his anonymity, in one critical moment, because he was brave enough to speak up, he saved his uncle’s life.  Because of his willingness to speak up, in an environment charged with fury and hatred (in Acts 23:10 we are told the commander feared this angry mob would literally pull Paul to pieces – don’t miss the tension of this environment), Paul went on to preach the gospel in Rome and many people came to know Christ.

The quiet nephew, the only mentioned in a couple verses nephew, the we don’t even know his name nephew, played an important role in the lives of more people than he probably ever realized.  Small story, big brave.

Here’s the thing, hopping planes and bringing clean water is awesome.  It is.  And it’s brave.  But sometimes, brave is also being faithful right where we are – raising these kids well, stewarding our finances carefully so we can give, loving others so they can launch, inspiring our friends with our perseverance and faithfulness, holding the broken, bringing a meal to a neighbor.  Friends, we have no clue, no clue, how our small obedience, our one moment of brave, can impact lives in ways we never even imagined. 

And so that is what we are called to – simply what God has for us.  Not someone else’s story.  Not someone else’s brave.  We are called to offer up our lives – messy and mundane or flash and fabulous – and live it all our for His glory.  Let’s do that.

Be ready. Be willing. And be brave.