Trisha gave Debbie her very first appointment. This was quite by chance, Debbie wasn’t particularly in a rush to get her hair cut and she doesn’t need her ‘roots done’ as many others may. It did however start a conversation in our home, about people fretting over their exposed roots. Examining them more keenly than before.
We live in a rootless society. The Celtic Lands perhaps more rooted than our western neighbours, but when a rootless world is told to stay at home the difficulty of the task exposes the reality of the global village, and perhaps our disconnection with the creation narrative.
The average person in UK/Ireland will live in 4 different houses and have 8 jobs across 4 career paths and that trend was on the rise. But the world just hit reset, and, if we are wise, we need to let this moment reset us.
Though it is necessary for some to move and some to change jobs etc. I hope – at least within the church – we can rekindle an appreciation for a more homely, vocational living.
The life of following Jesus involves constant reset moments, defaulting to Grace time and time again. After a while you learn to fall in God’s direction! That’s part of what it is to be a Christian, we are held by God and walk with God. We are Rescued and Commissioned.
However if we are to live full lives we must also recognise our Created identity. Each of these fundamentally shaping our lives as Christians.
By God we have been:
- Created – at a particular time in a specific place within a unique family. Right from Genesis one we find out that we have a creator who creates us. This very act gives us an identity, a purpose and relationships of which we live our life from, within the time and place God has placed us.
- Rescued – by Jesus’ work on the Cross and in Resurrection and Ascension we have been saved from the Sin, Pain, Brokenness and Death that came because of our rebellion against God. And the Champion King Jesus now invites us through repentance and faith into His kingdom.
- Commissioned – through Jesus’ church in the power of the Holy Spirit to go and make disciples of all nations and restore the brokenness of the world. Until He has called all His children home and establishes the new heaven and the new earth.
My assumption would be that most Christians feel the freedom of living out their rescued identity and hear the invitation to live out their commissioned identity.
However, I wonder, and I now hope that these past few months have helped expose our roots as a created people. People who God has knitted together within a family. For this time. At this place. With these people.
For a plane and free life, a life to the full (which is the Christian life) involves honouring the reality that Jesus has rescued you, that you are commissioned in the power of the Holy Spirit, Yes! But it also involves honouring the reality that God has created you.
You are totally unique. One of a kind. No copy and paste with God! There has never been anyone like you from the dawn of time and there will never be anyone like you again. God has made you and only you at this time, in this place, with these people so you can bare His image and pronounce His name with clarity.
So maybe as people in your house examine their roots to see if they need to go get their hair dyed, I pray that we will also examine our roots as uniquely created people whom God has rescued and commissioned.
andy lamberton 