Ron Aulbach

There is a collection of videos my kids like called “Humans are Awesome.”  It’s a montage of people doing extreme sports like surfing a Maverick wave, base jumping off the Eiffel Tower, riding a wheelchair down a two story ramp, and jumping a motorcycle over a canal.  The tag line repeated is “We all have choices, choices that will affect the rest of our lives.”  The video is inspiring, calling us to attempt the impossible and push the limits with the choices we make.  The same is true in our spiritual lives.  We all have choices to make that will affect the rest of our lives and that is completely normal.

I will often ask young adults, high school to college age, what they want to do with their life.  It’s a fascinating question, their future is unscripted and every option is available to them.  Most want to go to college, trade school, or serve their country in the military.  They might have an idea of a career path, but most of the answers point to just getting a job.  So I’ve learned to ask the question a bit differently, “If you could do anything for the rest of your life, what would that be?”  The answers are inspiring.  I’ve heard one describe her passion for traveling to Africa to work on clean water projects.  Another has told me that he wanted to write books that would make children laugh.  Not for money or fame, but to push the human limits of serving and reaching others. Which again, is completely normal.

The apostle Paul gives us the picture of how everything we do, the normal and the amazing, can be done for God’s glory. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (Colossians 3:23).  The most important word is “whatever.”  Whatever you do – whether it’s working in cubicle land, running the kids to activities, juggling the household chores, leading a sales staff, starting a business – whatever you do make the center of your work serving God.  Too often we work for the wrong boss.  Billy Graham once said “give your life to Christ, he can do more with it then you can.”  The problem isn’t that people can’t do anything. It’s that they can do everything and as they do, give all the glory to God.  That would be completely normal!