One of my co-workers shared this article this morning. For me, Varun's story invokes neither awe nor admiration - I mostly feel pity. Not because his accomplishments aren't impressive - they are pretty amazing things for a middle-schooler to have achieved. But perhaps I feel for this boy whose identity, whether he likes it or not, has already become wrapped around being a great athlete and musician and student.
It reminds me of how I felt growing up. I wanted deeper friendships, but couldn't seem to find any. In response, I tried to ace my classes, trained myself to be athletic, learned how to play the guitar, and attempted to be an all-around nice guy.
But a sad secret of life is that being admired does not make you a better candidate to be someone's friend. It makes you a good candidate to be someone's god; it makes you a good candidate to be a trinket in someone's trophy room. The effort I made and the success I achieved contributed to the distance I felt from others.
Before I run off to fail at life intentionally, I know there's a danger in overcompensating in the other direction. Downplaying every little gift I've been given because I'm afraid that people will see me differently. It is like the valedictorian that says, "I'm not that smart," or the star athlete who says, "There are people better than me." This may all be true, but it does not make anyone feel any better to hear that the smartest person they know is pretty dumb.
One great miracle of Jesus is that He somehow levels the playing field. It is written that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. He enables the best abilities in me to glorify God by allowing me to say, "If I am so great, how much greater must Jesus be?" And it enables the most wretched weakness in me to scream, "How perfect was Jesus compared to this sinful man? How loving was God to send His only Son for someone like me?"
Kings are only a foreshadowing of the greater King of Kings, and the sinner is the negative space in which God's glory shines. How could there ever be a circumstance where Jesus cannot be praised? And so I praise him both when I ace life and when I fail at it. I don't want to frustrate the world with my false humility or a bloated ego.
"You make everything glorious, and I am yours, what does that make me"
The past month seemed an eternity - a day's worth of work felt like a week; days dragged on and time slowed to a crawl. When I have my periodic minor existential crises, I feel like it's God saying, "Slow down; to me a day is a thousand years." And therefore, a day became a thousand years.
I was whining. I was thinking about all I didn't have, I was thinking about why I should love or serve others when I am lacking so much. Then I tunnel-visioned myself into demanding a single thing from God - I wanted people to treat me exactly one way and one way alone and any other way just wouldn't do.
Then came the blame game. It's the world's fault, it's the fault of generations past that I felt neglected in the ways that I did. It's everyone else's spiritual poverty that's causing this to happen. I needed a scapegoat. Friends, family, leaders, bosses, teachers just weren't living up to my expectations. I needed more.
The poor man's mentality. It was mentioned in our sermon at church this past Sunday.
So the mantra goes: I have little so I have nothing to give.
And that's how I was operating. I felt like I had something to prove with my life; that I had to be better so that people would treat me better. Either that, or other people had to be better. Someone had to change. But one distinct reminder came in the form of a song - that Christ is enough. He made us rich:
"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9)
I was looking for a scapegoat and I found one. A rich man who gave it all so that we might have eternal riches. And as long as I remember the riches I have found in Christ - the joy of knowing God's presence, the humility of being God's child, the encouragement of having a purpose - I cannot complain, I cannot expect any more. Christ is enough.
"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Philippians 3:8)
This past week, I watched the Blue Like Jazz movie, which... despite having backed on Kickstarter in production, I never got around to watching until now, a year after it was released because I thought I was done with all the "emergent" Christianity stuff. But I discovered I could watch it for free with my roommate's Amazon Prime account so I figured... why not?
Spoiler alert. The closing scene is where the main character, who was so ashamed of his Christianity in a liberal culture, chooses to apologize on behalf of other Christians, of other people, and what they had done to cause pain in another student's life. And in it, I saw the gospel - it is as if we came to God to apologize for our sin, to repent, and He stopped us mid-sentence, came right back at us and apologized for what we did and took the blame. And in doing so, gave us free life; freed us from all guilt and shame. It was grace we didn't deserve from the only one who needn't apologize for anything. And so I was reminded of this - that when Jesus gave up his riches for a spoiled brat like myself who demanded more, he fixed my brokenness.
Whatever I feel I didn't get, I got a million times over from God in Christ. Pick a thing I lack - familial love, friendships, money, fame, fortune, reputation. I have been given a counterpart that will fill and replace each one of these things to overflowing.
From Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart by J.D. Greear (p. 59):
We must be particularly careful to clarify confession and repentance, because confession can feel purifying. Many people are looking for exoneration, be that from a friend, a spouse, a counselor, a pastor, or Jesus. They just want someone to tell them they're "OK." Biblical repentance, however, is not merely a request for exoneration; it is a change of heart about our sin. Even confession of our sin to Jesus, soaked with tears, but apart from a change of attitude toward our sin, will not bring about eternal life. Confession is part of the repentance process, but not the sum total of it.
It's crummy being a restaurant owner. You're the victim, that manipulated guy that all your friends walk in expecting a 30% discount and appetizers on the house. My heart goes out to them. Feel free to join me in my annual April 23rd moment of silence for all restaurant owners with friends.
Never do I walk into a friend's workplace and expect to give, but I do feel entitled to receive a whole lot. After all, we're friends right? *nudge nudge*
A radical idea crossed my mind... What if I went into a friend's restaurant and expected to pay more? What if I tipped 40% because they were my friend and I wanted to honor them? What if I expected to give instead of get? And that got me going...
It says a lot about how much we respect and love our favorite musical artists when we pirate their music, how much we love our church by demanding they meet our needs, how much we love our roommates when we count the number of times we clean the house without their help, and how much we care about our friends who own restaurants when we expect to be treated like kings.
"Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 25:17)
To love God and to love your neighbor is altogether something radically different.
I want you to stop running from thing to thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I’m coming to believe it’s in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there. Most of the time, I eat like someone’s about to steal my plate, like I can’t be bothered to chew or taste or feel, but I’m coming to see that the table is about food, and it’s also about time. It’s about showing up in person, a whole and present person, instead of a fragmented, frantic person, phone in one hand and to-do list in the other. Put them down, both of them, twin symbols of the modern age, and pick up a knife and a fork. The table is where time stops. It’s where we look people in the eye, where we tell the truth about how hard it is, where we make space to listen to the whole story, not the textable sound bite. We don’t come to the table to fight or to defend. We don’t come to prove or to conquer, to draw lines in the sand or to stir up trouble. We come to the table because our hunger brings us there. We come with a need, with fragility, with an admission of our humanity. The table is the great equalizer, the level playing field many of us have been looking everywhere for. The table is the place where the doing stops, the trying stops, the masks are removed, and we allow ourselves to be nourished, like children. We allow someone else to meet our need. In a world that prides people on not having needs, on going longer and faster, on going without, on powering through, the table is a place of safety and rest and humanity, where we are allowed to be as fragile as we feel. If the home is a body, the table is the heart, the beating center, the sustainer of life and health. Come to the table.
I have responsibilities. I have clear work I need to do, and some things are certain - if I choose not to do the dishes, my kitchen will be dirty. Sometimes I'd like to say, God, why don't you find me a maid or something. But there's no point blaming God for responsibilities I have, because I'm fully aware.
But often when I've taken care of everything I need to, I stress out that people don't act the way I want them to, my heart doesn't go the way I want it to, and that the stars don't align so I can live out my Disney fairytale life.
This past week I had to face being emotionally distraught over something someone said. They meant no harm, but it hit a sore spot I barely knew I had. Then I wonder whether I should be doing more to toughen up to make sure I don't get hurt. I wonder what walls need to be built up to protect myself. I hated the fact that I wasn't in control of my own emotions.
I scheduled my entire Monday out only to find that for various reasons, everyone who I was slated to meet with canceled on me. My natural inclination was to get frustrated at how others were being inconsiderate and/or irresponsible.
But it's really not a dog-eat-dog world, it's a God-is-God world. God asks a few things of us, and we can do it faithfully. Then we trust Him for the rest.
Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (Phil. 3:16, ESV)
