performing
Why do I feel like I have to perform in social settings? Like I have to be good enough or wise enough or strong enough to impress or amaze or woo. Why? There is nothing I can do to impress people apart from the mercy and grace of God. I have nothing to prove or impress about. All I want is God. Honestly if, (girl A, guy B, or random person C) doesn't think I am the kind of person they want to hang out with every minute of every day, how does that detract from my life with God, or those around me? Other than not having that one person like me, what other consequences are there? So what if I am a spaz or I offend or generally irritate? If that bothers (random person A) then there are 6 billion other perfectly good people on the planet. Hang out with one of them.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not writing this because I am mad or angry with somebody. More myself. This need to perform or impress is a pretty frequent phenomenon in my diverse adventures. I think it's a pretty universal tendency in most of human psychology/ethical issues. We see our value from outside ourselves and when we seek that value in an outside-us source other than God, we set outselves up for what one of my favourite authors (Donald Miller) calls the "lifeboat"
The lifeboat is that hypothetical situation where there are 6 (doctors, lawyers, artists, grandmas, etc) people escaping in a lifeboat with rations enough for 5. The idea is that each person has to justify why they should get to live (while the other dies). When we try to seek our glory outside of God, we fall into just that trap. This is why we are afraid of what others think, we are afraid we will lose our place in the 'lifeboat', that we will be the outgroup and everyone else will be the ingroup. We become terrified that nobody will see our worth and that we will never receive the validation we so eagerly crave. We want people to tell us we are beautiful and wise and good, and we are afraid that if we don't take action to make ourselves look as good as possible (and maybe make others look as bad as possible), then nobody will validate us and we will have to swim: cold and alone in the sea of sharks.
This is wrong and a large part of what Jesus came to abolish. The disciples were probably flunk outs of the educational system of their day: so intelligence isn't a good enough reason to throw someone out. He touched lepers, so sickness or misfortune are not good enough reasons. Race or religion? Nope, ask the samaritan women at the well worshipping in a 'perversion' of Judaisim. She gets to stay on the boat too. Or how about the immoral, the whores and mobsters (the judaic version of tax collectors). They get to stay to.
Are you catching what I am saying here? It's not that some of this stuff isn't wrong or bad or harmful. Of course you shouldn't sleep around, murder, (insert sin here), (ask the next aids victim you see if maybe abstinence would have been a good idea). It will hurt you because the maker of the human machine said so; he knows how it should be run and will clue you in to it's optimum mode of operation, obviously.
No, what I am talking about is changing the ground on which we relate to the non-Christian world. So few approach those in their work or home (Christians and non Christians) as people who are hurting themselves and need God to come and show them how to live in this adventure. No, we see morality as this standard we need to meet in order to stay onboard the stupid lifeboat. We don't want to be good, we just want to be better: better than the next guy in our vain attempts to stay onboard. All the while we miss out on the God of the swimmers and the outcasts. We miss out on the God who insists that trying to survive in the context of this lifeboat will ultimately kill us and those around us.
Instead, a much healthier view is that we all are worthwhile, we all have value and merit. But we all also do stupid stuff. We admonish and correct because we are concerned not because we are trying to conform to a standard to stay onboard. The lifeboat is death but the great seas of Elyon, the redpool of the death of God, that is where we find LIFE!
Follow Him in his Death
posted by Daniel @ 4:07 下午
2 comments
2 Comments:
Thank you for this, Daniel.
This is precisely what I needed to read. I agree that our feelings of value and self-worth ought to come from God and ourselves, primarily.
We should not allow people's negative atttitudes towards us as people, for whatever reason, cause us to feel that we are somehow less valuable than we are. After all, what we do and what we are are not necessarily the same, and it is rightly Christian to seek out the face of God in our fellow human beings, in whatever condition they are made in.
Perhaps sometimes, we are so busy seeking God in other people, that we often fail to see God in ourselves, and so when other people view us negatively because they don't like our jokes, or they find us boring, or they are uncomfortable around us because of their prejudices, we are more vulnerable than we ought to be.
Just a few thoughts.
I agree. Although for me, people's negative opinion's of me cause me to become less vulnerable than is healthy. You get scared you are going to get hurt again. However C.S. Lewis said, "the only place outside of heaven where one can be free from the dangers of love is hell". I think it's a struggle to open up in Christian intimacy because we find our worth in God. This worth in God allows us to open ourselves up to others, not in a way to keeps us from relational harm, but allows us to heal from that harm. It's the same worth Jesus found that allowed Him to forgive his crucifiers.
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