"If anything matters… everything matters" – comes from the conversation in The Shack in which Mack is wondering (as he anticipates his return to ‘real’ life), if what he does in his day-to-day experience even truly matters (has any significance). I think there are a lot of us who wonder that, especially in a world that reduces individuals to numbers and statistics. What is significant about the daily routine of getting up, going to work, cleaning the house, making meals, doing laundry, changing diapers etc.? In addition, there is such a drive for performance, especially in religious circles, but also in the culture at large, that the question easily morphs a little into, "Does what I do matter enough (to God, to others, to the expectations of others etc.)?" Like any legalism, the answer is inevitably ‘no’, failure is just around the corner.
In my opinion, one of the most fundamental lies resides at the core of this issue, and that is, "Significance is related to Doing (Performance)". In the world, ‘respect’ is linked to significance and significance is linked to performance. Furthermore, rewards and punishments are linked to performance and the world is a competitive place where people use any means to fight for their piece of the pie of significance and attending rewards. This ‘lie’ is a monstrous controlling power whose influence seeps into virtually every relationship and activity. If we can get to the core of this issue in our lives as human beings, I think we would find that most of us believe that this ‘lie’ is the truth, and in fact ‘want’ it to be true. Most people cannot imagine an existence where this ‘lie’ was not a dominating and controlling factor of life. It is almost as if this were not true, people would live uncontrollable lives and chaos would ensue; so it is better to embrace the lie than take the risks involved in any sort of movement toward freedom.
The truth is this: "Significance originates from ‘being’, not from doing." Doing adds nothing to our significance and doing takes nothing away. Doing is directly related, not to significance, but is largely an expression of who we think we are. "As a person thinks in their heart, so are they (so they will act)." Because we are already significant, our choices and actions matter. It is not the choices that make us significant, it is our significance that make our choices meaningful. Every human being is significant by nature. They are imprinted with the very image of God, they are each the center of God’s love and goodness. True significance is individually wrapped up in the uniqueness of each person and each one being created in the image of God, regardless of what Madison Ave says, or how an individual may be damaged or broken.
There is a HUGE difference in living from the truth or from the lie; between seeing every activity as an expression of significance (the truth) or to live in the lie and try to ‘suck’ out of every activity some transitory sense of significance. It is easy to see that the latter is totally an ethic of performance. As a result of the truth, the activity that each of us is involved in has significance; what we do ‘matters’ regardless of what it is.
God is not significant because of what God ‘does’, but because of who God ‘is’. God does not get more significant by activity, but because God is significant, what God does ‘matters’. We are made in this same image. We are so significant that even each hair of our heads is important to God.
To take this one step further…because we are each significant and what we do ‘matters’, we can each through our significance indwelt by the ‘Significant One’ change the universe by the way we love and see and hear and listen and speak etc. ‘Doing’ is simply walking in the present tense relationship with God that we are growing in, facing whatever it is that is in front of us today, and making choices or responding or being still or…
Jesus spent 30 years ‘doing’ nothing (as the world would understand it), but the first thing we hear about him out of his Father’s mouth is how pleased Father is of His boy. Did Jesus become significant because of the next three years? Nope. He was already significant.
To begin to think this way is no small change…it is the movement from one universe to another
