My team and I recently listened to a sermon from the Village Church called “Marked By God”. It addressed the difficulty many have with finding their identity in Christ, and not in what society says they are. We live in a culture centered on, and governed by achievement.
How much money are you making? Do you have a happy marriage? What grades did you get this semester? Are your kids smart and healthy? What is your pant size?
Again and again our society questions and critiques every inch of us. When we measure up in one area, we are lacking in another. The truth is, we will never be the best, and we will never have it all figured out.
Sorry to break it to you, but we will never be enough. Society sees you through a lens of shame that says nothing you do is enough and you should feel guilty about it.
Brene Brown is a researcher at the University of Houston. She says men and women experience this pressure of achievement in different ways. Here is how women experience our achievement-based culture:
“Women are expected (and sometimes desire) to be perfect, yet we’re not allowed to look as if we’re working for it. We want it to just materialize somehow. Everything should be effortless. The expectation is to be natural beauties, natural mothers, natural leaders, and naturally good parents, and we want to belong to naturally fabulous families.”
Brené goes on to argue in an achievement culture with perfection as the standard, a woman is forced into impossible either-ors.
“Be perfect, but don’t make a fuss about it, and don’t take time away from anything, like your family or your partner or your work, to achieve your perfection. If you’re really good, perfection should be easy.
Don’t upset anyone or hurt anyone’s feelings, but say what’s on your mind.
Dial the sexuality way up (after the kids are down, the dog is walked, and the house is clean), but dial it way down at the PTA meeting. And, geeze, whatever you do, don’t confuse the two.
Just be yourself, but not if it means being shy or unsure.
Don’t make people feel uncomfortable, but be honest.
Don’t get too emotional, but don’t be too detached either. Too emotional and you’re hysterical. Too detached and you’re a cold hearted bitch.”
For men it is a different message. They constantly hear this from our culture:
“Basically, men live under the pressure of one unrelenting message: Do not be perceived as weak.” Don’t fail. Don’t fail at work, don’t fail in marriage, don’t fail in bed, don’t fail with you money, don’t fail with your children… It doesn’t matter. Don’t fail. Don’t be wrong. Don’t be soft. Don’t reveal any weakness or fear. Don’t get criticized or ridiculed.
So in our achievement-based culture the woman says, “I have to be perfect,” and the man think, “I can’t be weak or ever fail.”
The truth is we live in a fallen world, full of broken people. We will never get it right, and spending every day trying only leads to exhaustion.
But there is hope, there is an answer to all of this!
A real relationship with the Lord
When we want to measure how we are doing, we must stop turning to social media, which only screams, “try harder”. Instead turn to our Heavenly Father who made you himself. Looking at someone else’s life and making the list of ways you don’t match up is like telling God He messed up. Can you imagine saying, “God you made me really ugly. You made me dumb. You didn’t give me any talent.” What a total lie!
The main message of the Gospel is: YOU’RE IMPERFECT AND HOPELESSLY WEAK
It is the same message as our culture, but with a different resolution. Our culture wants you to do anything to prove this isn’t true. The Gospel only wants us to accept this and give it to the Lord. One obviously leads to more peace, and yet we choose the hardest route.
Matthew 5:13-16 says:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lamp stand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
Here God calls us “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world”.
Just like Jesus did with Peter, He is giving us a name we don’t yet embody.
Peter means “rock”, and was given to him because Jesus knew he would be a rock upon which the church would be built. Throughout the New Testament, Peter was anything but a rock. He was fickle, full of doubt, unreliable, and temperamental. Not someone society would see as the cornerstone of the church. But that was the lens of shame our culture looks through. Jesus saw him through a lens of grace. He knew what Peter had done and what he would do in the future, but He also knew who Peter could be. The man of God Peter would grow into.
In Matthew, when God calls us salt and light, this is not another challenge to achieve. We shouldn’t read this and evaluate our lives to see if we are being salty enough. The Lord is calling us what we will become. We are salty and full of light right now, but He knows there is room to become more. God is calling His children higher.
Think about salt, when you add it to something it is unmistakable, you are sure to taste it. Same with light, when you’re in darkness, even a little bit of light helps you see everything better.
This is where we, as children of God may be right now. We might add enough salt and light to this world for people to notice, but God is always calling us to do more for His kingdom.
Verse 13 says “But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”
The only way salt become less salty is through dilution. In water you can drown out the taste of salt by adding more water. Likewise, you make it saltier by adding salt. This is the simplistic call from our Father.
Make the world saltier.
In a room, the more windows you close the darker the room gets; and the more lights you turn on the lighter it gets.
Bring more light to the world.
With God we are able to be the salt and light he called us to be in Matthew. It is when we let our achievement-based culture dilute us that we lose our saltiness. That is when we truly become worthless like the salt trampled under people’s feet.
Stop letting culture tell you are broken, weak, and will never measure up to those around you. The more you accept this lie the truer it becomes. You are letting this fallen world dilute your salt and shut off your light.
Instead, we must see ourselves through the lens of grace our Father uses and recognize, we are imperfect and hopelessly weak, and yet so loved and accepted by God.
Don’t let this world drown out the salt and light you were called to be. Accept the name God gave you and remember it is a process. He didn’t give us the name because it is who we are, but because it is who He calls us to be.
Rest in that and keep adding salt and light to this world.
