What Color Is Your Parachute?

What is religion? Religion is the service of God out of grateful love for what God has done for us. The Christian religion, more particularly, is the service of God out of grateful love for what God has done for us in Christ.

PHILLIPS BROOKS, author of O Little Town of Bethlehem

Comment 6: The Unconscious Doing of the Work We Came to Do

You may have already wrestled with this first part of your Mission here on Earth. You may not have called it that. You may have called it simply “learning to believe in God.” But if you ask what your Mission is in life, this one was and is the precondition of all else that you came here to do. Absent this Mission, it is folly to talk about the rest. So, if you have been seeking faith, or seeking to strengthen your faith, you have—willy- nilly—already been about the doing of the Mission you were given. Born into This Time In Between, you have found His hand again, and reclasped it. You are therefore ready to go on with His Spirit to tackle together what you came here to do—the other parts of your Mission.

SOME RANDOM COMMENTS ABOUT YOUR SECOND MISSION IN LIFE

Your second Mission here on Earth is also one that you share with the rest of the human race, but it is no less your individual Mission for the fact that it is shared: and that is, to do what you can moment by moment, day by day, step by step, to make this world a better place—following the leading and guidance of God’s Spirit within you and around you.

Comment 1: The Uncomfortableness of One Step at a Time

Imagine yourself out walking in your neighborhood one night, and suddenly you find yourself surrounded by such a dense fog, that you have lost your bearings and cannot find your way. Suddenly, a friend appears out of the fog, and asks you to put your hand in theirs, and they will lead you home. And you, not being able to tell where you are going, trustingly follow them, even though you can only see one step at a time. Eventually you arrive safely home, filled with gratitude. But as you reflect upon the experience the next day, you realize how unsettling it was to have to keep walking when you could see only one step at a time, even though you had guidance you knew you could trust.

Now I have asked you to imagine all of this, because this is the essence of the second Mission to which you are called—and I am called—in this life. It is all very different than we had imagined. When the question, “What is your Mission in life?” is first broached, and we have put our hand in God’s, as it were, we imagine that we will be taken up to some mountaintop, from which we can see far into the distance. And that we will hear a voice in our ear, saying, “Look, look, see that distant city? That is the goal of your Mission; that is where everything is leading, every step of your way.”

But instead of the mountaintop, we find ourselves in the valley—wandering often in a fog. And the voice in our ear says something quite different from what we thought we would hear. It says, “Your Mission is to take one step at a time, even when you don’t yet see where it all is leading, or what the Grand Plan is, or what your overall Mission in life is. Trust Me; I will lead you.”

Comment 2: The Nature of This Step-by-Step Mission

As I said, in every situation you find yourself, you have been sent here to do whatever you can—moment by moment—that will bring more gratitude, more kindness, more forgiveness, more honesty, and more love into this world.

There are dozens of such moments every day. Moments when you stand—as it were—at a spiritual crossroads, with two ways lying before you. Such moments are typically called “moments of decision.” It does not matter what the frame or content of each particular decision is. It all devolves, in the end, into just two roads before you, every time. The one will lead to less gratitude, less kindness, less forgiveness, less honesty, or less love in the world. The other will lead to more gratitude, more kindness, more forgiveness, more honesty, or more love in the world. Your Mission, each moment, is to seek to choose the latter spiritual road, rather than the former, every time.

Comment 3: Some Examples of This Step-by-Step Mission

I will give a few examples, so that the nature of this part of your Mission may be unmistakably clear.

You are out on the freeway, in your car. Someone has gotten into the wrong lane, to the right of your lane, and needs to move over into the lane you are in. You see their need to cut in, ahead of you. Decision time. In your mind’s eye you see two spiritual roads lying before you: the one leading to less kindness in the world (you speed up, to shut this driver out, and don’t let them move over), the other leading to more kindness in the world (you let the driver cut in). Since you know this is part of your Mission, part of the reason why you came to Earth, your calling is clear. You know which road to take, which decision to make.

You are hard at work at your desk, when suddenly an interruption comes. The phone rings, or someone is at the door. They need something from you, a question of some of your time and attention. Decision time. In your mind’s eye you see two spiritual roads lying before you: the one leading to less love in the world (you tell them you’re just too busy to be bothered), the other leading to more love in the world (you put aside your work, decide that God may have sent this person to you, and say, “Yes, what can I do to help you?”). Since you know this is part of your Mission, part of the reason why you came to Earth, your calling is clear. You know which road to take, which decision to make.

Your mate does something that hurts your feelings. Decision time. In your mind’s eye you see two spiritual roads lying before you: the one leading to less forgiveness in the world (you institute an icy silence between the two of you, and think of how you can punish them or otherwise get even), the other leading to more forgiveness in the world (you go over and take them in your arms, speak the truth about your hurt feelings,