I’m no Jeopardy contestant or anything, but I sure do love me some trivia. 

A combination of age, ample amounts of reading and TV viewing, and an insatiable curiosity have conspired to cram my head full of useless and trivial facts. For example…

• Q: What was the name of the artificial language, invented in 1887, that attempted to become the single, unified global argot? A: Why Esperanto, of course! 
• Q: Who was the baseball player that came closest to equaling Ted Williams’ historic .400 batting average over a single season? A: George Brett, of my Kansas City Royals, who finished the 1980 season with a .390 batting average.
• Q: What is the name of the constellation depicted on the field of the Australian national flag? A: The Southern Cross! Give that man a cigar!

All three questions, incidentally, came straight from somewhere in the deep recesses of my overstuffed brain. Google, I am proud to say, was not involved in the crafting of any of these. 

However, if I ever decided to ascend the trivia heights and audition for Jeopardy!, I would need lots and lots of study on the British monarchy, opera, U.S. presidents, and African geography. I could probably hold my own on nearly everything else.

Trivia is fun. Especially when played in a bar, with a team, with plenty of beer and pizza along for the ride. But after my recent mission trip to Guatemala, I began to wonder how much of my life might currently be consumed with trivia. And no, I don’t mean the kind that can win you a T-shirt. I mean the kind that can fill all the waking hours of a day and leave you looking back asking, “What exactly was this day about, anyway?”

Spending a week in the developing world will show you very quickly that NOTHING is trivial for the folks who live there all day, every day. The time they need to wake up in the morning matters. What they can find and cook for breakfast matters. How they can find fuel for the stove in their humble home matters. Finding transportation to the market matters.

Staying warm matters. Protecting their children matters. Cultivating a few vegetables on a small patch of ground matters. Finding a way to earn just a little bit of extra money so they can afford to send their children to school matters. Figuring out how to relieve the burning pain in their legs matters.

In short, there are no trivial moments for people who live on the margins of existence. For them, everything matters.

Whenever I return from a trip to a place like Guatemala, I pray the same prayer. I pray that the interval between the time when I return home and the moment when I slip back into the habit of seeing the relatively trivial events of my life as Highly Significant and Immanently Important might somehow be longer than the last time. For example…

• Is the proliferation of orange traffic cones around Fort Collins annoying? Indeed, it is. But does it ultimately MATTER? 
• Is it important to decide whether to start fertilizing my lawn THIS week, or wait until next week? Well, sure it is. But does it MATTER? 
• Am I worried that Joan and I haven’t really done a lot of planning yet for our trip to Portugal this fall? I certainly am. But really… does it MATTER?

God has not promised us that if we believe and follow him, we will live lives of rainbows and puppy dog tails. Jesus’ mission was not to bring us problemlessness, but to bring significance. In John 10:10 when Jesus said, “I came that they may have LIFE and have it abundantly…” (emphasis mine) he was promising us lives of non-triviality.

But let’s be honest for a moment here, shall we? Do we really want what Jesus is offering? Aren’t the trivial things of our existence somehow a perverse mark of our standing and affluence? If we are truthful, we will confess that it is something of a luxury to be able to spend our time fretting about traffic cones, lawn fertilizer, and trips to Portugal.  

Ultimately though, we come to realize are created by God to live lives that MATTER. Not lives of Trivial Pursuit.

I suppose one way around this dilemma would be to join Saint Francis in renouncing our wealth and taking up life in the monastery. Or maybe instead we could choose to find significance through SERVICE. By voluntarily choosing to lay aside personal comfort to enter into another’s discomfort, we kill the proverbial two birds with one stone. We render much-needed succor to another child of God while also discovering the meaning and significance we seek. 

Abundant blessings;