There's something really horrible about being in your early 20's. The pressure of the world weighs down. At least for myself and most of the crowd I run with. Moneyless, singleness, careerless, clueless... but I've come to find out that it's the white, middle-class, American dream that's completely and absolutely killing us. Literally. Why do we overly drink alcohol? Why do we over-eat? Why do we spend so much time following sports and watching TV? Why do we play 9 hours of video games? Why do we look at porn? Why do we spend so much money on just stuff that ends up in a garage sell 7 years later? Why do we smoke drugs? Why do we commit suicide? Why do we have so much stress that stops our hearts just to impress (fill in the blank)? Why? Someone has set up these criterias of success/pleasure and if you don't get there you are worthless. No wonder so many of us attempt to seek out through ANYTHING some kind of distraction from what’s really going on inside.
Let's start from the beginning of life as an average American citizen. You are born healthy; mom enrolls you in soccer, gymnastics, baseball, ballet. You make good grades, you participate in band, choir, swimming, football, theatre, cheerleading. You go to college. You graduate. You get a job in an office or by travel. You meet the love of your life. You get married. You buy your first house with a cute yard. You have your first baby. You have your second. They are both healthy. You enroll them in soccer, gymnastics, and swimming. They start school and make good grades. They go to college. You retire. You travel. You mow your yard a lot and read the newspaper. Your wife dies. Your husband dies. You die.
Now, what’s completely left out of this lovely list of “the white picket fence” is the cancer, death of a child, your husband cheating on you for 10 years, house burns down, losing the job, molested, mother and father die, car wreck that kills your wife, miscarriage, best friend turns their back on you, you get a disease that leaves you in bed for almost 2 years. Here’s the reality of life. We are killing ourselves for a sprinkler system perfect green kind of life that you, nor I, were ever guaranteed. We are all unconsciously trying to catch the wind.
So maybe it has nothing to do with the early 20s. Maybe it’s in middle school when you are constantly made fun of that you feel like a failure. Maybe it’s in high school when you don’t make the football team that you feel like a failure. Maybe it’s when you can’t graduate college because you don’t even have enough money to eat that you feel like a failure. Maybe it’s when you get married to the love of your life and realize that you should have married someone else. Maybe if you just had a different job, a different husband. Maybe if you ran away to Germany and got to start all over. We are constantly inconsistent. We want new. And we want it now. And we're in the constant mindset of "What's next...what's next" And we’re all killing ourselves. The problem with attempting to seek pleasure from the world (acceptance, money, power, sex that is now based solely on technique, things, doing "good" for the sake of your glory and recognition) is that you are in a never-ending war against the very reason you were even created. It's never been about you.
Maybe, just maybe, God really knows what He’s saying when He commands certain things of us. Not to be that kind of parent that constantly says, “Because I told you so” but because He is completely warring for our happiness. Because He’s begging us to not run in the street to chase the wind. Maybe God gets our pain. Maybe God never promised a life where death, suffering and hurt will never occur but did promise that in the midst of it we didn’t have to go through it alone. Maybe He’s telling you He loves you when you have a dark sad night of the soul. And maybe we were created by a God that isn’t bound by a list of superficial, world-searching, humanized path of “if you do x,y,z, then you will be happy.” The Creator of this universe has programmed this planet for, first and foremost, His named to be praised and glorified and for our pleasure and freedom - not to put us in bondage. He’s not here to take your life away but give you life.
What if we were finally not defined by the list. What if some of us aren’t suppose to go to college? What if some of us aren’t suppose to get married? What if some of us are? What if some of us don’t work in an office and don’t mow our yard? What if some of us end up homeless? What if some of us get cancer? What if some of us lose our family? What if some of us can’t retire? What if some of us never see the world? What if some of us never have the fenced yard? What if some of us didn’t have to go use alcohol just to be able to sleep that night? What if some of only ate what our bodies needed? What if we started to live each day like we didn’t deserve it? What if we recognized that God gets the glory in every day rather than our ladder of success and artificial happiness? What if we finally submitted to and become dependent on a God that longs to save us from ourselves? What if we saw our lives as a gift and that each breathe is God’s grace on us? What if we really understood God’s grace? What if we finally stopped chasing the polluted air of this world and for once said, “God, you were right. I can’t do it on my own anymore. I’m yours.”
God help us. Save us from ourselves.
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3 comments:
Someone has set up these criterias of success/pleasure and if you don't get there you are worthless."
I love that, and I couldn't agree with you more. It does seem, however, that you are also setting up a criterium for success or pleasure. Maybe I wouldn't say success in the American dream sense. More of a spiritual success. Or if you're not the one setting up the criterium here, it's likely something gathered from what you been taught or learned on your own about God, life, purpose, etc.
I understand that we know the answer to this ultimate meaning and purpose. And I know that the keys to unlocking the answers is in our Scriptures. The basic idea is that we're here on this Earth to enjoy God and worship Him forever. We boldly claim that any and all activity outside of the narrow path is worldly, of the devil, and ultimately worthless.
Here's where I run into trouble. While finding a valuable meaning for an individual life is something most people desire, to accuse everyone who rejects the teachings of our faith of leading worthless lives is at least arroganly rude. And historically it's been a pretty destructive outlook.
In 540 A.D. Christianity was given a unique opportunity to demonstrate the power of its worldview. Soon after the bubonic plague struck Byzantium that year, striking down 10,000 people a day until 100 million lives had been lost, the Roman Empire was destroyed. Christianity benefited immensely from the pandemic as droves of terrified people flocked into the Church. It's no secret that people seem more open to the Spirit in times of crisis.
unaware of their growing power in numbers, Christianity castigated secular medicine for failing to cure the plague. The Church subsequently declared all secular medicine heretical. For the next TEN CENTURIES, blood-letting, herbal remedies and prayer became the treatments of choice for every ailment. With medical advancement at a standstill, millions died, perhaps as many from the treatment as the malady.
Developments in science and technology were abandoned. Extensive aqueduct and plumbing systems created by earlier generations disappeared. Since the sinful flesh was to be despised, even washing was discouraged. Disease of every type ran rampant as hygiene and sanitation were forgotten. The vast network of roads that enabled transportation and communication fell into disrepair and remained that way until the 19th century.
Book burning became commonplace. In the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras had already suggested that the Earth revolved around the Sun. By the third century B.C., Aristarchus had outlined heliocentricity while Eratosthenes had measured the circumference of the Earth. Hipparchus had invented longitude and latitude.
After the onset of the Christian Dark Ages, it wouldn’t be until the 1500’s that Copernicus would reintroduce the forgotten theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. When Galileo attempted to promote the theory, he was tried by the Inquisition in Rome for heresy. It’s unfair to assume only the Roman Catholic Church condemned heliocentricity; Calvin and Luther, the founders of the Protestant Reformation, also harshly condemned the idea, insisting that as it contradicted the Scriptures, it was therefore false.
Even as early as the fourth century St. Augustine had written, ”It is impossible there should be inhabitants on the opposite side of the Earth, since no such race is recorded in Scripture among the descendents of Adam.”
Historical research was nonexistent and what history there was, was rewritten to conform to the Bible. Modern archeology has proven that human history far exceeds 6000 years, but until very recent years, nearly all English Bibles placed a date on Genesis 1:1 at 4004 B.C. We now know that well before 4000 B.C., rich cultures already existed with well developed art,agriculture, architecture, city-planning, dance, drama, trade, writing, law, and even a few forms of democratic government.
History is replete with significant forward development followed by major setbacks. While Christianity claims to have gradually lifted humanity out of dark ignorance of a dark pre-Christian world, the truth is opposite. The longest and darkest setback in the progression of western civilization lies at the feet of Christianity.
Ignorance was crowned king when the great libraries in Alexandria in were burned in 391. Ancient academies were closed and education for anyone outside the clergy ended. The Fourth Council of Carthage, in canon 16, permits only Bishops to read the books of heretics in a time of need. Jerome, a Church Father in the fourth century, reportedly rejoiced that the classical authors were being forgotten. St. John Chrysostom, a preeminent Greek Father of the Church said, “Every trace of the old philosophy and literature of the ancient world has vanished from the face of the Earth.”
Whether medicine, art, science, history, music, reading, writing or math, everything was to be brought into conformity with the accepted doctrines of Christianity. The laity and the priest craft were kept ignorant of any ideas outside of a religiously Christian framework. Even the monasteries, filled with educated monkish scribes, were consigned to only preserving works of religious devotion. All other types of literature were consigned to oblivion, hidden away or destroyed, considered at best meaningless works of the flesh, or at worst distractions to lead astray the pious. Worldly writings were thought more suited for the flames, as their authors were destined for hell. Every thought was to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
I know that in my own life, while a youth, I believed there was no greater purpose in life than learning about, and serving, my Lord. I believed the Rapture would occur any day, and nothing could take priority over saving the lost. I honestly had dreams and ambitions of attempting to convert the Antichrist when he showed up. Prior to my conversion I was an A student, but in the following years I spurned secular academics and neglected my studies in exchange for what I considered more worthy, eternal pursuits. In my mind, higher learning and high paying jobs were vain. Temporal pursuits, I thought, were not worthy of an eternal resident of heaven.
I think you would have to at least agree that this isn't the best way for a generation (now) or several tens of generations (the dark ages) to attain the most purpose filled life. If we have all the answers, why are we so awful at putting any of them to work?
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