A Sense of Duty

“David also said to Solomon his son,
‘Be strong and courageous, and do the work.’”
1 Chronicles 28:20

By Jon Hirst

There is a sense of duty that drives people to do the many things that fill their lives. We feel duty to our country, duty to our family, duty to our alma mater, and the list goes on. These forces in our lives cause us to invest time, resources and ourselves on many levels. And we do it happily because when we do this, we feel that we are completing a circle that no one can quite explain but everyone knows must be finished in order for life to go on.

The word duty floods my mind with ideas of responsibility, tradition, value, and good character. It also carries with it a feeling of obligation – a heavy feeling that sticks to you like plastic on sweaty skin. This heaviness paints negative strokes on the canvas that is the word duty. It reminds us that sometimes duty is an obligation that is shunned or at least disdained.

So what is the place of duty in the Christian life? The first question to ask is, “Duty to whom?” Many people say that they feel a duty to their church or to their parent’s religious background. But I have heard few talk about duty to their Creator.

It seems rather obvious that the creation should feel duty towards the Creator of the universe and Savior of the world. It would make sense that if humanity were to feel duty towards anything it would be towards their God. So when I realized that this wasn’t the case, I had to ask myself why.

It comes down to the way that God revealed Himself to us. He chose to reveal Himself through grace, and He gave us a choice. He decided not to impose duty upon us but to give us the ability to come to Him or reject Him. And that ability is what makes the difference.

No one I know chooses duty. Duty is thrust upon someone and they either struggle under the load or thrive with the challenge. Duty is either a loathsome obligation or a special privilege. Once God extended to His creation a choice, we realized that the decision was up to us. Humanity then began to view its decision to follow God as something that could be controlled by them and held up as an accomplishment of humanity instead of the duty of a creature.

In the rush of free will we have left duty far behind. We preach choice from our pulpits. We focus our eyes on the important role that each individual plays in the redemptive plan. We view that moment that an individual steps from the shadows of darkness into the aisles of pure light as the pinnacle of what makes our faith so incredible. And truly it is an incredible moment. That moment encompasses everything that is amazing about grace.

Unfortunately, in our humanity we focus on the human choice that exists and forget about the reality of eternal duty. We don’t understand that it is our duty as the creation to serve the Creator. We truly have no choice about the matter. The only reason that there is choice involved is because God has postponed the day when “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord.” That example of duty makes my loyalty to a university or to a company feel very insignificant.

Eternal duty makes my head swim. I struggle to imagine an obligation so strong that time cannot erode it. This type of duty desired to command the attention of my grandfather and his grandfather. It will exist when my great grandchildren grow up. And the most amazing thing is that this duty doesn’t change.

When God asked Solomon, through his father David, to fulfill his duty by building the temple, it was the same call that God makes to Christians today. Solomon understood clearly what God wanted Him to accomplish and he knew that eternal duty demanded it. With that understanding, Solomon built one of the most amazing structures in the world and watched as the Creator of the world descended into it and inhabited it.

In our day, the existence of eternal duty is just as real. But the question that remains is, “Are God’s creation aware of their duty and willing to fulfill it?”

I look at individuals like John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, D.L. Moody, and Billy Graham and I can say that some do see their eternal duty and take it up as their commitment. But so many more are happy with other duties that pale in comparison.

What is loyalty to a job, or faithfulness to a cause in the face of eternal duty? Now I am not saying that these things could not be part of our eternal duty to God. God uses people and their specific skills and responsibilities and these people are driven by this sense of eternal duty. But too many times we settle for these inferior duties as ends in themselves instead of a part of the eternal picture.

I imagine with sadness the look on the face of an activist that spent their life fighting for their cause only to realize as they kneel before the throne of God that their cause was just a puddle compared to the ocean of God’s eternal purpose.

So how can this eternal duty be explained? What are it’s guiding points. Jesus laid them out to the young man who came to him searching for a cause. Jesus said “love God then love others (get exact verse).” Everything we do should be judged based how we represent these principles to the Creator and His creation – after all it is our duty.

Boxes

Boxes

My house is full of boxes, because to me, a box holds mystery, joy and magic. The lifting of a lid is a moment to cherish. Sometimes it’s the small delight of a Frango Mint at Christmastime. Other times it’s accompanied by cake and open-mouthed smiles singing “Happy Birthday.” Some boxes play music. Others boast hand-painted designs.

A box can protect a family history, like the wooden box full of grandma’s treasures.

Sometimes a box holds a yesterday; like the glittering box that cradles my daughter’s baby teeth.

A box can hold tomorrow; like the small velvet box that my love gave to me the night he proposed.

A box can hold forever; like the simple box that wraps a child’s first Bible.

Our life is full of boxes. We need places to hold the precious things in our lives. Places to keep them, protect them, and frame the images that flood in when we dust them off in the quiet moments of life and remember, cherish, and hope.

Quiet the moment, and open a box.

By Mindy Hirst

A heart cry

A heart cry

Sometimes when I’m tired or sick or afraid
I hear my heart cry, “I want my mom!”

It is an intense longing; a cry from deep inside.
Like an infant in her crib crying out,
She knows that she is not enough in and of herself.

What is this my heart is longing for?
To lay my head on the softness of her shoulder;
To awaken to the smell of coffee and
her warm skin wrapped in cotton pajamas.

It is to run in the dark with your heart in your ears
Knowing that if you could just get to the side of the bed
You would be safe and the pounding would stop.

It is waking her up in the middle of the night,
To talk through some anxious pain,
And she, listening over a bowl of ice cream.

It is feeling her there at every proud moment,
Watching you with wet eyes;
Knowing you are filling her heart with joy.

It is her hand gently stroking your hairline
As you cry out in the night;
Rocking back and forth in pain;
As you bring forth your own child;
Your heart is not crying…

Mom is there.

Sweet Baby

I wrote this several years ago to our youngest child before we knew her. I thought I would share this for those who are waiting...

Sweet baby, I miss you.

We’ve never met, so how can I miss you so much? Why does my chest ache with an emptiness I can’t understand? Why do my arms feel empty? Why do I count the heads at the table and feel like someone is missing?

I love you. But how can I love someone who was never created? Is it that you are out there waiting for me to accept you? Will your chubby hand never grasp a Cheerio while marble eyes beam above two mounds of white cheek? Or will you go to someone else if I wait too long?

I close my eyes and I can see your eyes, feel the soft skin on the curve of your cheek, smell the wispy hair above your ears and it’s hard to let you go. It’s hard to know that you may never be mine to hold, to love, to raise and then finally to let go.

Instead, I have to let you go now. Even before you exist. You are not mine…not that you ever would be. You are God’s—to give or not to give. It is not in my power to make you come to be. It is only in God’s power that your life is created. And that is fitting, for only through his power can your life be redeemed.

But I can’t help hoping that you might still come to me. My heart races at the thought that the gift of your life might be placed in mine. That my life might be given to yours to help you come into the world. And then it would be my honor to watch you grow. To pour my life into yours. To see you become the wonderful vision God had of you when he sat down to create you.

If one day you’re given to me, it will be the greatest gift. But even the thought of you…the hope and longing for you is a wonderful joy. And so I love you baby, and always will.

Mindy Hirst

The Look

The Look

My mind has stored many memories from those first fuzzy, dreamlike days following the triumphant drive home from the hospital with our newest baby. One of those is my five-year-old looking closely into her new sister’s squirmy face as her eyes fluttered open for a brief second. She turned to me and announced in disbelief, “Mom, she has blue eyes just like me!”

But her eyes, though similar, were not exactly the same. Still in the cool family, her eyes were her own shade of blue, and we have watched over the months as they have taken a yellowish turn, making us think they may become green over time.

It is incredible that each member of our family, though similar in many ways, has his and her own hue. We’ve gotten a strange pleasure from naming our particular shades. Like the labels on a pile of crayons, we’ve named each other; ice blue, denim blue, Chicago River blue, Lake Michigan blue, and Arizona Desert Sand. There is something about being a family that ties us together. A similar sense of humor, the way our bodies are made up, a tendency to like or dislike the same things. But, though we may all be of the same genetic makeup, our shading is all our own, and it affects the way we do things and even our style of parenting.

One characteristic in my family that was not passed down universally is “The Look.” We can only trace this trait as far back as my grandfather with his steel eyes and intense expression. My mom inherited those eyes almost without variance, which is how she got The Look. Her eyes are sweet and caring most of the time, but step over the line and you’ll get it. The Look can stop you mid-sentence, mid-reach or mid-jump (in my brother’s case). It makes you think again about whatever it is you are doing. You can even feel The Look if it is given from behind.

I, being an overly compliant child, rarely needed more than The Look in the form of discipline. I knew that what followed was never good, and I had observed this life-principle many times in the lives of my older brother and sister. I knew better. It was a wonderful tool, and I am thankful in retrospect for it. It was a warning, like the tide rolling out before a tsunami.

When I became a parent, I realized pretty early on that I was not my mother. Strong, decisive, organized. I had always idealized the amazing woman who had poured her life into me. Initially, I figured I could follow in her steps and do what I always did…learn from watching. But my memory, good as it was at storing childhood memories, was not enough. I found quickly that I was a different person with different strengths and that my mom’s strategies would not work across the board for me.

“You need to get ‘The Look,’” she said to me one day as my precious little two-year-old tested me at her house, embarrassing me with her iron-willed determination to touch whatever it was she wasn’t supposed to touch.

“I know,” I said discouraged. What she didn’t know was that I had tried the look, given the look, and even practiced the look with no results. What was the problem? It worked for my sister, why not me?

Then one day I realized why. Since I was a small child, my mom always told me that I looked like my dad. She attributed most of it to the wavy hair and likable smile I got from him. What she didn’t realize was that although the color of my eyes came from her, the set of my brow was that of my father’s. It was one of the things that drew her to him, those sweetly set, wet hazel eyes. But it was also the thing that made it impossible for him to relate to us the way she did.

Without The Look, Dad’s authority had to come from elsewhere. Not immediately imposing, we had to learn over time that he may not look serious, but he would always follow through on the important things. His disappointment was not something to be feared, but his approval was attainable and was to be treasured.

Eventually, we all get our own style and confidence in parenting. Over time, I’ve learned to find my own strengths and use them to my advantage, compensating for the lack of other tools. Being childlike, I have a way of understanding a child’s world and connecting on a different level. When I talk with children, they understand me. This has been tremendously useful in my relationships with my kids. What strengths do you have that help you work with your kids? Are you funny, patient, consistent, organized? Ask God how you can use those gifts to pour into the lives of your kids.

We are each created unique, and God has an intimate knowledge of our makeup. He knew exactly what he was doing when he planted your children into your family. And he knew exactly what they needed when he gave you to them. He has given you the tools you need to teach them what they need to learn in their young years. Just ask him for wisdom to see what they are.

I just dumped out our tub of crayon nubs and found 49 blues. I would never want to be stuck with only one shade when I undertook a major work of art. God made each of us as individual as the colors in a box of crayons. Though sometimes similar, we are all unique. He uses each of us for a different purpose in the work of art He is creating in our families and communities. Be proud of your hue, and be willing to let God use you in his masterpiece.

Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Kindergarten Teacher

Kindergarten Teacher

Her face is alight in the playground sun
She is standing at the bottom of the slide
a chain of children curling down every inch
She laughs, reaching out
making sure each child survives
the twenty slipping, wriggling legs

Her eyes are serious
She is directing a line of children
some shuffle along looking at their feet
one marches head high, shoulders back
another studies the shape of the cloud overhead
They hurry and dawdle in a pattern of chaotic order

Her back is strong
She is bending over a short table
crayons scattered in red, and blue
and yellow—her favorite color
A small hand colors
wild hair blowing in the wind
It is my teacher,
my Kindergarten teacher

Her smile is young
She is immersed each day
In the imagination of five-year-olds
Their in-the-moment
Love of life infusing her
With the joy and energy of a child

Her heart is loving
She is standing at the gate
Carefully watching each child go home for the day
They look to her in awe and adoration
Her face forever etched in their mind
The thought of her smile always bringing pride and comfort

By Mindy Hirst
September 11, 2006

The Mountain Has a Soul

The Mountain Has a Soul

The mountain has a soul
on its side a battle rages

The winds crest against its sides
and clouds swirl and build

As shadows invade the gentle slopes
and creep toward its valiant heart

The mountain has a soul
and it finds most joy in the light

But the winds still howl
And the shadows creep

The battle descends on every valley
Defying light and casting dim dismay

It makes us ask of the journey,
Why the winds?
Why the shadows?
Why the battles?
Why the struggles?

But that is not the question of this mountain
This struggle created its shape and majesty
Instead it asks with hopeful certainty
For strength in the journey

Jon Hirst

The Rock and the Rainbow

2 Samuel 22:47 “The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God, the Rock, my Savior!”

I watched a rainbow pierce the side of a rock cliff this afternoon. Rain drops fell around me and the dark clouds lumbered by, giving the sun moments to glaze the rocks with light.

I watched a rainbow pierce the side of a rock cliff this afternoon. Part of me wished the rock was not there and the rainbow was allowed to stream down to the ground. The rock’s solid mass broke up the rainbow into a million pieces of light and I mourned its passing.

I watched a rainbow pierce the side of a rock cliff this afternoon. Another part of me admired the rock. In the face of such beauty and mesmerizing power, it held steadfast and did not waver. It faced the rainbow, the rain, the sun and every other element with a strength I do not have.

I watched a rainbow pierce the side of a rock cliff this afternoon. Strength and beauty met together at that divine intersection, and I saw the point of the soul where God pierces his people with his light and steadfastness, transforming them into holy works.

We pause today at the rock and the rainbow and thank God for one of His own, remembering the great power and beauty created in a life dedicated to Him.

By Jon Hirst

God's Workbench

God's Workbench

When I was a kid, my dad had a huge workbench in the garage. It was black with use, but orderly with a light oily smell. He had a corkboard above with hooks suspending endless tools; clean and well worn. I remember a fine-toothed saw and another with jagged crocodile teeth. On the desktop lay more tools; an adjustable wrench, pliers, a notched-handled screwdriver, and a set of silver wrenches that gleamed like jewelry.

Above the bench was a piece of plywood between rafters that held a pile of lumber just waiting for an imagination to lift some down for a go-cart or lean-to. With that bench, a big yard and an engaged imagination, there were endless possibilities. Standing behind those tools, there was a sense of excitement and power.

We are all tools on God’s workbench. Hopefully we are willing tools in the hand of the Creator, who uses each of us to accomplish the projects He is working on in building His kingdom. Some of us are used on many projects; others are committed to one project for a lifetime.

Sometimes we kids would swipe a tool from Dad to build a fort or fix a toy, and leave it in the yard to get wet and rusty. Sometimes I feel like that when I leave the workbench of God to work on my own projects. I may accomplish something, but outside the safety of the bench, I am left uncared for. And then the wonderful day when I am found again, dried off and set again on the honorable workbench until he has a job for me.

There have been other times in my life when I have felt like the obscure tool in the drawer, forgotten and unused—my strange shape making people wonder what I could possibly be used for. And then a snag comes up in a project and I am the perfect solution to get to the next step.

My dad always said, “Use the right tool for the right job.” But sometimes when you can’t find the right tool, you have to make due. There are times when I felt like a hammer pounding in a screw…or better yet, the screw getting pounded by a hammer, because there was not the appropriate tool willing for the job. I wonder if our lives would become a little easier if all God’s tools were willing to do the jobs He intended for us.

Not too long ago, God had us working on something, and then switched us to another project in the middle of the job. My initial response was frustration and resistance. How could God stop work on MY project? And then I realized; it was never ours to begin with…and who is to say that work has stopped just because we’ve been moved to another kingdom project? He is the Creator. In that realization, I have much peace. Now He has us settled again in another project. We feel fulfilled, using our skills to complete kingdom tasks. We can see results and that is a tremendous blessing.

Since we’ve been married, we’ve been trying to follow God’s leading, step by step, working on the projects He lays out for us, and sometimes switching projects when He needs us somewhere else. Without that understanding, our decisions may look erratic and confusing; changing projects every few years and having a baby in each state we have lived in! But from the Creator’s perspective, our life is secure and stable as a part of His toolset. It gives us joy to know that we fit perfectly within his plan no matter where it takes us.

Jon and Mindy Hirst

Sewer Flower

Sewer Flower

I spent a week in a crowded, Asian city where the sidewalks cracked. The sewer stench leaked out into the hot, muggy air. Out of a crack, grew a simple stalk, with one delicate flower. I touched it. It was as if that bright pink flower was the inspiration for all the luscious silks that come from that part of the world.

By the end of the week, the flower bloomed into a group of seven. It was thriving in a dirty, smelly world. It pulled nutrition from the defecation, and created from it a lovely fragrance. It didn't grow to be placed on the president's table, but for the pleasure of the person walking along the street.

There's something to learn from that small sewer flower. God chooses each of us to emit His fragrance to the people around us. It's easy to get disillusioned and bitter about the sin and corruption around us, but it's not the flower's job to point out the scum in the sewer; nor is it the flower's job to clean it up. It's the flower's job to take what little good there is from the sewer and be beautiful.

Freely give of the beauty He gave you until He transplants you to another street. And be careful not to suck up any of the bitterness from the sewer.

by Mindy Hirst (Spring 1999, edited Fall 2007)

Talks with Jesus

Talks with Jesus

It’s beautiful to see her sitting, cool in her flowered dress. Still more beautiful to hear the soft murmur of her voice as she talks with Jesus. A comforting sound. The rhythm soothing. The love comforting. Strength flowing out of every word into lives. Lives so busy with living that a prayer seems a difficult task.

Her mirror’s edge crammed with snapshots—their names the essence of the simple poetry of her prayers. No one quite knows the effect of her constant dialogue in the lives of those faces. I’ve often wondered why on a particular day, in a certain situation, a prayer I never uttered was answered. Perhaps my name was mentioned in her daily talks with Jesus.

It’s beautiful to think of her now, face alight at Jesus’ side. So happy to see her, you can tell they’ve been talking for years. Now where were we? Oh yes. I can do that. And, yes. I will do that too. It’s so good to see you here. I love talking with you.

By Mindy Hirst

Our Word Shop Dream

It was the first time away after our little treasure was born. After several hundred nights of bad sleep and the adjustment of not working together was mostly over, we walked alone in a small Midwestern rivertown. Here, we dreamed of a life away from the suburbs where somehow clear thoughts could form.

We built in our minds a little shop off a quaint street where we would work together again, helping authors with their own thoughts by creating a place where imagination and joy of communication could share a cup of coffee and a muffin. We called it our Word Shop.

Now, almost five years later, we still don't live in a rivertown, but clear thoughts are beginning to take shape. It seems to be the right time to begin to build a place online that echos the dream of that trip together. Maybe someday we'll build it with brick and tile...today we lay the foundation with words.