Welcome to the United States of America. Your education is readily available, required for most kids, and we might even pay you for your continuing education (if you pay us back plus interest).
Then you get thrown out into the wide world of capitalism, where successful people invent multi-million dollar corporations out of their garage in California and we’re all expected to climb the ladder and revolutionize our companies, or create our own.
It’s all about YOU.
Check any of Uncle Sam’s photos. He’s always pointing at you.
On some level, encouraging self-sufficiency and a proactive nature is excellent. We would do well with a see-problem, fix-problem mentality. I do think, however, that putting the entire focus of a person’s financial success can have terrible side-effects. Take two examples: Japan and the United States.
I will only speak briefly on Japan, as my knowledge of their culture is rudimentary, but they do put an extreme amount of pressure on their children to succeed in a business setting. There is a tremendous amount of success in their market, but suicide is the leading cause of death for people under thirty. I can’t rightly say if this is a correlation or a causation, but I can reasonably guess that if they put their hope in their careers (and have no hope for life after death) then they don’t have much to live for if they’ve failed financially.
Japan is also less than 1% Christian, so they don’t have hope in salvation…
Then you can look at the people of the U.S., and I feel like many of us have taken the “only you” mentality and understood it to mean that we deserve the perfect life because we are in the U.S.. “I have a college degree, so why can’t I get a job?” Is a question that gets tossed about quite a bit nowadays, and it’s one that I’ve felt in my own aggravated heart. We have things like welfare and bailouts (which, do not misunderstand me, can be great things in the right circumstance) but now can easily be warped to demand “what we deserve.” Anyone that has worked in customer service has encountered a customer who makes unrealistic demands because they feel that that’s what they deserve (or that you and your company are terrible because you can’t violate your own policies to compensate for their irresponsibility).
But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.
I’m here to talk about my pride, and how I carried it into my relationship with God and how I’m fighting it tooth and nail daily. My hope is that anyone who reads this and understands or sympathizes in this struggle can also learn and grow with me.
The American dream (not American life, but our lofty American DREAM) asks us to be proactive, to be the best no matter what, to always succeed, and to have 2.5 kids. So when I sin, my gut reaction is to fix it.
I want to fix it. I want to jump through the hoops and win the contest and have the most righteous repentance in the history of anything so that God will say “Dang. This guy means it. My son, you have earned your forgiveness.”
Here’s a gut-check to anyone who shares this mentality with me. It doesn’t work like that.
I’m the guy who will mentally flay himself for every sin, stick my nose in the carpet and mourn, or do 100 push-ups as fast as I can to hurt my body as self-punishment for my sin. Because I want to be able to earn the forgiveness for my sin. Because I don’t deserve that forgiveness. Because it’s not fair for God to forgive me just because he loves me, even when I spit in his face with my behavior.
I would like to think that the “sincerity” of my behavior earns points with God, or that he appreciates my (forced) humility or something…
But I think his words are more like what Jesus said in John 8. Something like, “Kyle. Get up. I love you. Go and sin no more.” He wouldn’t regard my actions (because he can see my heart, which is what matters).
And now for some scripture!
Isaiah 64:6 “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.” (NLT)
My righteousness, and my attempts to be righteous are sinful and impure in the face of God. What a devastating blow to my self-centered mindset. This cripples me and my billion-dollar garage company, my impending patents, my dream to be a jazz-metal drummer, my time spent in fundraisers, my mission trips, my time opening doors for pedestrians…
I’m an American! I can do anything, right?
Nope
Let me be clear on that.
No
If the first gut-check wasn’t enough, here’s the straight jab.
Deuteronomy 8:16-18 “He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’ Remember the LORD your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath.” (NLT)
God will put us in humbling situations where we cannot succeed (read that one twice if you have to) so that he can be glorified through his works, and so that we can be drawn closer to him when he shows us the love that he wants to give us, and it teaches us to love him back as he takes care of us in our most dire moments.
An easy comparison would be visualizing us as toddlers yelling “I want to do it myself” in the face of something that we cannot do, God stopping us, and then providing.
So then… if we’re the screaming and flailing do-it-yourself toddlers in an impossible world… what do we do?
I thinks this verse is a comforting clue.
1 Samuel 12:20 “Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. ‘You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.'”
Our evil is acknowledged, but we are not told to turn away. We are not told to give up. We are not told to work harder and impress God. We’re told to go to him and love him and submit.
Saying things like “submit” and “find God’s will” can sound like vague answers with no real substance, but we’re all called to serve Christ differently, so I can’t say for sure what it is for everyone. I’m still working on what that means for me, actually.
I’m not very good at failing and at forgiving myself, and I’m not as good at trusting in God’s provision as I should be either. I’ve lived my entire life trying to make sure that all of my i’s are dotted, and I have a meltdown when I don’t cross an important t, but that’s not the life that God wants for me.
The life that God wants for me is to take up Jesus’s yoke and to embrace the salvation that is available to me through submission to God’s will, and that starts with me letting go of my self-centeredness, and me understanding that “me” and what I can achieve is not good enough.
But God is good, and he provides all.
Thanks
