I’m an activist. I hugely admire those of a more contemplative nature and I’ve learned so much from them on my OMS journey, but for me the default way that I express my devotion to Christ is by doing stuff.

Both are good, but they do come with their shadow sides. If you are wired like me, then the lurking shadow is what I sometimes call ‘customary creep’. I look at my life through the lenses of prayer, mission, justice, hospitality, creativity, and learning, and think “I’m not really doing enough there, and maybe I could add just a little more here”. Before I know it, my life is so full of activity that I never find time simply to rest in God’s presence.

Even more insidiously, I start to believe that I need to do all this stuff in order to earn God’s approval. I read Matthew 25:21 and hope that my works will be enough to earn a “well done, good and faithful servant”. It’s insidious because this is a parable, a story told to make a specific point, and Jesus didn’t tell it to describe our relationship with our heavenly Father. God never sees me as a servant. He is only interested in raising up sons and daughters, and His word over me is actually “this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3:16; and read Luke 15:17-24 if you still need convincing).

When I allow this truth to infuse my spirit, I stop seeing my OMS customary as a servant’s to-do list and start to experience it as a father’s invitation to walk alongside Him as He works in and through me. Or as The Message translation puts it: “walk with me and work with me… learn the unforced rhythms of grace” (Matt 11:28-30).

The ‘vision’ poem which was influential in the founding of our Order describes a people who “choose to lose that they might one day win the great ‘well done’ of faithful sons and daughters”. And that’s the only ‘well done’ that I hope or expect to hear.