I read a quote the other day, which renewed my excavation of a rabbit hole I had started some time ago.
"Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." - St. Catherine of Siena
What exactly does that mean, and how exactly does one set the world on fire?
I remember an attempt to address this very question with our small Bible study group down in Guadalajara. The topic was beauty and the question was, what does the Bible consider beautiful? Truth be told, I failed to adequately find significant support for why some things are beautiful and some aren't. Perhaps my lack of peace on the subject was due to God's design for beauty, as explained in Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."
But you know what was clearly defined, or I found could be well explained? Ugliness. And therefore in order to explain beauty according to biblical reference, resorted to first defining ugliness and then relating that to its opposite. For example, 1 Corinthians 6:15 " Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid." When thinking of the body being fearfully and wonderfully made; our anatomical design is beautiful. For the sake of an example, the toe is beautiful as a toe. For a toe to have eyelashes would completely diminish the protective role of the eyelash and the stability role of the toe. The toe was made beautifully to support the body in standing and movement and the eyelash was made beautifully to protect the eye from invaders. In essence, beauty is fulfilling the role God has created us for. Or according to St. Catherine of Siena, beauty sets the world on fire. As a quick aside, from a surgeon's perspective getting to recreate our body's anatomy when something fails to function as it should, is a way of restoring ugliness to beauty again.
That is all well and pretty sounding in theory. Unfortunately, real-life application, as is typical, often falls short of the well, the pretty, and the beautiful. Does that mean we are not fully being whom God has meant us to be? That we are either falling short of that goal, or even yet, completely wrong in our role? Obviously, questions we must each answer for ourselves. In my own experience, I always self-explained I wasn't at the end yet. Though I am where God has placed me for the time being, I am merely passing through for a season. There were lessons to be learned and people to love, but I never looked for anything beyond what contentment for a season could provide. I didn't look for the well, the pretty and the beautiful because I didn't expect their due. It wasn't my time to set the world on fire yet.
I was recently challenged about my ultimate desire, when I declared "to be useful/used by God." The response I received had been a frown, not disapprovingly so, but more of a troubled or concerned frown. A parent, it was explained to me, would not want to "use" their beloved child. The value of that child is beyond riches, and would never be considered nothing and only worthy of being used. I had no response, appropriately so, as I can not fully understand a parent's perspective nor the love a parent would hold for his or her child. But I do have an imagination. It is easy to imagine a desire to walk with someone I love, side by side, through all their ups and downs, rather than hold back and watch them live out and struggle through those same ups and downs.
To actively change one's own perspective, is not always as easy as a mere change of semantics makes it seem. Rebranding or relabeling my ultimate desire to instead be "a valuable member of God's team" does not automatically change the perspective I have long carried of self-value that came with the previous statement. Believe it or not, this finally brings me to the point that started me down this rabbit hole in the first place. I have recently had a string of patient encounters that I felt, for the first time, as if I was a part of the team involved in their care. My friend, Fancy, was one of them. They prayed, while I prayed and together with God we all came to a conclusion together. I had not done anything differently, per se, in the care provided or the surgery performed. I had simply allowed myself to be a part of the team on the field rather than warming the bench. Being a part of that team created a feeling that I recognized in St. Catherine of Siena's quote. It felt like we had set the world on fire.
I imagine it to be similar to the feeling a teacher would have when one of their student's comes to a new understanding. Similar to the feeling an architect would have when people fill their designed and completed building for the first time. Similar to the feeling a mathematician would have when the equation they've been puzzling through finally comes to a solution. Similar to the feeling a parent would have when they see their child happy. etc. etc. etc.
These recent experiences have helped me realize much about what God values. He values us. In Christ, I have value. The role we play, and the purpose we have are important. But it is when we stand in with Christ's love and intent that makes the role beautiful and that purpose sets the world on fire.
Much Love.
