The World May Say Stop, Purpose Always Says Go

​It was around 60 A.D. The apostle Paul was in prison in Rome. He wrote a letter to the Church at Philippi, a church he had established—the first church ever established in Europe—a church that held a special place in his heart.

In this letter, Paul gets vulnerable. This was not the first time he had been imprisoned for sharing his faith, and the Roman rulers were growing increasingly weary of how rapidly Christianity was spreading—spreading, in large part, because of Paul's letters.

Paul says to the church:

"If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body."

You can feel it in this letter—Paul is ready to quit. He desires to quit, fully knowing how much easier life would be if he simply transitioned to his life with Jesus. But Paul also knows that the same Jesus has called him to work that is far from finished.

This letter was written to the Church at Philippi centuries ago. But as God works, His words are never limited by time or audience.

I have been there lately—wrestling between a desire to quit and the knowledge that now, more than ever, it is necessary to keep going. I have been there, feeling like it would be easier to settle into a life of simplicity for myself rather than fighting a weary fight for others—a fight that can feel unwinnable at times.

But that is the spiritual battle of this world. The devil always tempts us with the easy path, while the God who died on a cross in the name of progress and future is a constant reminder that the necessary path will rarely be the easy one.

As a Christian, can I be grateful for anything more than a God who refused to take the easy way out?

Every day, I work in communities, helping people better understand that how people are born, who they are born as, and how they experience their earliest years ALL have significant impacts on their future health and opportunities.

It is science; it is research. It is not opinion, and it is surely not politics—even if the latter is full steam ahead trying to undo the former.

Oh, how I desire to simply quit the battle. Oh, how it would be easier not to know my purpose. But I do. And at the heart of my Christian faith is choosing a life that is necessary over a life that is desired.

So today, I go out into my community.

Additionally I am called to write. And in a time when more and more writing is auto-generated by a computer—rather than generated from a heart sitting in a prison cell—it is easy to wonder: What is the point?

The point is that those who read my words—especially my sons, who will one day hold these words as my legacy—will know me well enough to recognize that these words are not those of a robot but of a man who deeply feels the hurts and pains of others, largely out of the hurts and pains that never stop living within himself.

Robots can't feel pain. Humans can.
Robots can't meet people where they are. Humans can.

And so, as much as I may desire to turn my writing over to the robots, it is necessary for me—and for others—that I continue to fight with the pen I have. With the opportunity that God has given me to choose necessary over desired.

Many of us are also in that place today.

Let go or keep going? Choose desire or choose necessity?

We all have unique contributions to make in this world. Often, those contributions change the world when we decide they are important enough to carry forward—even when the momentum of the world is standing against us.

I want to encourage you: Your work is more necessary than ever.

Keep going.

Choose necessary.