I recently read a passage in a novel that was about as bleak as anything I’ve ever encountered.
Paraphrasing, it went something like this:
Each day, the man arose and worked his small subsistence farm, much as his father and grandfather before him. For this man, life was not something in which to thrive or survive, but rather a habit he could not break.
I wrote last time about agency and our ability to impact the systems of which we are in integral part. I’m aware, of course, that many folks are fully occupied by the more basic battle of simple survival. But even that struggle offers a sort of direction and purpose.
I’d never thought about people simply rising and passing through each day out of sheer habit.
The truly sad thing in the novel was the implication that large numbers of people throughout the world live this way. No purpose. No joy. No direction. Life is merely a habit they cannot break.
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I think about people caught in the horrible abuse of human trafficking. Our kids, before they were rescued, and their mothers, many of whom are still trapped in brothels.
Is that what life is like for them – a habit, facing each day and doing whatever they do, almost like robots?
Jesus invites us into partnership, into offering hope and freedom to our kids. He doesn’t do it so they will learn proper theology.
He wants them to experience His purpose for them – a life of joy and freedom, a life lived on purpose, exactly the opposite of life lived as a habit.
We get to be a small part of their journey. What could be better than that?