Going Through the Motions

One of my favorite shows several years back was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know, I know…not your standard fare for your standard Christian Girl, and certainly the show had no deep significant or eternal redeeming value. But for some reason I enjoyed the teen angst and drama even while set against the backdrop of vampires and demons.

The premise of the show was simple enough: Sarah Michelle Gellar played Buffy, a teenager who had been “chosen” and endowed with super strength to rid her town, and the world, of the big bads that lurked in the night. She had a host of friends who all played their parts to help her out. She was scared of her responsibility at first, and then as she became quite good at what she did for a 16-year-old stereotypical blonde girl, she became cocky and full of herself. However, after several seasons of the daily grind, she found herself disillusioned. She began to appear beaten down, tired and completely without the drive to move forward. Strangely enough, but unbeknownst to each other, the people closest to her all seemed to be going through the exact same thing.

My favorite episode ever is entitled “Where Do We Go From Here”. In that episode, a magic spell is accidentally cast, and everyone in the town is forced to utter their inmost feelings, in the form of a song. Here is part of the lyrics from Buffy’s opening tune:

Every single night
The same arrangement
I go out and fight the fight
Still, I always feel the strange estrangement
Nothing here is real
Nothing here is right
I've been making shows of trading blows
Just hoping no one knows
That I've been going through the motions
Walking through the part
Nothing seems to penetrate my heart
Will I stay this way forever?
Sleepwalk through my life's endeavor?
I don't want to be
Going through the motions
Losing all my drive
I can't even see
If this is really me
And I just want to be
Alive!

Is this resonating a chord with anyone other than me?

Buffy is a show with little more than basic entertainment value, but this episode is so real-life, that it literally screams from the screen. How many of us are “going through the motions” of life? Just hoping nobody notices. Or maybe secretly hoping that someone will? You can’t even see yourself anymore for all of the junk that’s in the way. Things have plodded on the same way for so long, is there even a way out?

Buffy’s little sister Dawn, who is feeling very left out of all the “big-kid” action in Buffy’s life, is given only one line in her song, but it is riveting.

Does anybody even notice? Does anybody even care?

Again, how many of us secretly cry this very thing? John 10:10b says …I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. Life to the full. Not life that is going through the motions. In Jeremiah 31:3, God is talking to the Israelites, his chosen people, but also the same people that time after time disobeyed and rebelled against the very God that had saved them. The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness". God loves us that same way. God notices us. God cares. God’s best for us does not include a life lived going through the motions.

I have fallen into the trap of living life going through the motions. But no more. I still have my daily job. That doesn’t change. But going to Africa has shown me that there is more out there for me. I can now do my daily job with joy because I know there are greater things that I can be a part of. I can make a difference. I can live my life to the full.