Well, it's after Thanksgiving and you know what that means: all those bell-ringers outside your favorite stores, asking for your change. I passed one today, coming out of Wal-Mart, and I had change in my pocket. I kept walking. As I got out into the parking lot, I remembered the verse, "Even as you do unto the least of these little ones, you do unto me." I paused, and I would like to say that I turned around and gave him my change, but I didn't. I promised myself, "I'll give to them next time." And then I got in my car and drove home.
I help out on an excel forum regularly, too. There are some interesting problems people have, issues where I have to spend 20 minutes trying to come up with a solution for them and am forced to get creative to do so. But then there are issues that seem so simple to me that I have to wonder whether the poster even tried to solve the problem on their own and annoying posts where the poster does a poor job explaining his/her requirements and the thread quickly becomes 12 posts when 3 would have done it. Sometimes, when I feel like not answering, I remember the verse, "And who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is a sin." I wish I could say that always makes me stay on and answer these questions as best as I can, but it doesn't.
What's the point of writing all this? That good is so hard to do? No, we all know that already. Sometimes, we just get selfish, be it with our time, money, or even love. I'm writing this to question rather how much is good to give. Can we give too much of ourselves? Does it become wrong at some point to continue giving?
Mark 12:41-44 has the story of the widow who gave two mites, and Jesus said she gave more than all the rich men had because she gave all she had. The Bible also says, though, that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children (Proverbs 13:22), which seems to say we're not to give away all. How do we reconcile the two?
In America and most other first-world countries, it is expensive to bring up a child. It is expensive to feed the homeless here, too, or to take care of those who can't care for themselves. Is it right that 50 African children should starve so that our child may eat and have a good time with his or her friends? Is it right that the man on the street should be denied because it costs more to feed him for a day than such a child for a month?
Conversely, how can one justify denying one's own children when one has the resources to avoid that denial? How can one say that man on the street is not valuable enough to be saved?
And how much of our earnings should we devote to helping others? How much of our time? How much of our love? Is it counted righteous for us to work second jobs so the money from those jobs can help the poor? Would it be better for us to instead use that time to counsel those around us?
The only answer I have, unfortunately, is one that doesn't address anyone's specific situation. It is two things: 1. that we must always be willing to give as God wills us, even if that means our very lives for His sake (though that particular sacrifice is only asked of a relative few), and 2. that we have a heart to serve others.
We don't know whether God asked the widow to give all that she had. We don't know what became of her on this earth. But she had a heart to give to God, and that heart burned so brightly that there was nothing she held back from Him. She may have been rewarded richly on this earth and lived like a queen from that day forward. She may have died in poverty, starving. We don't know. What we do know is her love for God was worth more than anything she had on this world.
Is it worth that much to you?
Monday, November 30, 2009
Good Enough
For years, as I've mentioned before, I've been killing myself to be good enough. It started when I was a child and my father ignored me the vast majority of the time while my mother smothered me with ridiculous praise, but seemed especially proud when I accomplished something. I took those times to be what really made her appreciate me and dismissed the rest as bunk. The situation was exacerbated by my peers, who would often bench me if I made a single mistake in any sport (I have never been particularly athletic). I soon taught myself that I had to be perfect to be accepted, that love is earned.
One of the offshoots of this, aside from my spending the next twenty years killing myself trying to live up to impossible self-imposed standards, was that when I wasn't loved, I tore myself apart looking for the flaw, for what separated me from others. I did this most often in relationships, or rather, my lack thereof. Even when my confidence improved in other areas, it didn't improve much in this one.
I analyzed every last part of me I could think of: looks, intelligence, sense of humor, abilities and talents, how I came across, mood, tone and tenor of voice, body language, money, and a host of others. Except for being a bit moody sometimes, in none of these was I markedly worse than anyone else I knew who was going out on dates. I asked and practically begged friends to tell me what was wrong with me and none of them had an answer.
And then, it finally hit me: the answer was that I was obsessed with finding what was wrong. People could tell, either by me verbally telling them or just reading it on my face that I didn't like myself, that I was trying to prove myself to them. I was giving them power to determine my self worth, particularly with women I was interested in. I tried to be so super-nice to them that I probably came across as even more insecure than I was and, when I talked about how dismal I thought my situation would be in the future, I gave rise to feelings of pity in them and I don't believe a woman can truly be interested in a man she pities. She can pity someone she respects, but I think that respect has to be not only developed first, but remain strongest or else interest will dissolve or become impossible to spark.
So, in short, women pitied me and therefore couldn't respect me and so couldn't be interested in me. Men saw that I thought myself weak and so didn't look to me as a leader, which also hurt because that took away from what little respect I may have had among the women.
And all of this is being stripped away quickly by the realization that there's nothing special wrong with me. I'm far from perfect still, and always will be, but I'm not worse than anyone or undeserving of them. I'm every bit as valuable as they are. Accomplishments mean so much less now, my longing for a relationship to validate me is going away, my need to talk to people often (and usually about myself) has almost vanished - everything is just so much clearer now.
Except for one thing: in this, I have turned away from God. I know it's not right in my head, but I feel proud now of myself for having realized I already am what I wanted to be: good enough for others. I feel like I solved my own problem and, since it feels I did it without God, I have the ludicrous feeling of not needing Him. I need to turn back to the Bible, to pray again, to worship, to kneel at the feet of He Who loves me enough to die for me, to realize that the hurt I've gone through this past month from someone has been almost exactly what I've done to Him time and time again.
And here's the weird thing: all of this time that I've killed myself to be good enough for love has been a waste, not only because I was always good enough for others and just didn't realize it, but more importantly, that God loved me and I didn't have to be good enough. I couldn't be good enough. Even had I become the renaissance man I had thought everyone else demanded I be, I'd have not been good enough for it. And yet it was freely being offered. There is no anger at how many times I've rejected Him, no hurt feelings that I seek my own ends above His more times than I can count, no vindictiveness when my actions lead me into an emotional pit. There is only love, a love that always welcomes me back with open arms, a love that seeks to be my primary source of happiness because it knows it won't disappoint me, a love that seeks always for my good.
I don't know what it is about me that makes me not long for God with my heart. Perhaps I need to realize, now that I know I'm good enough for others, that I'll never be good enough for Him and that He'll still love me more than all of the others in my life ever could combined.
One of the offshoots of this, aside from my spending the next twenty years killing myself trying to live up to impossible self-imposed standards, was that when I wasn't loved, I tore myself apart looking for the flaw, for what separated me from others. I did this most often in relationships, or rather, my lack thereof. Even when my confidence improved in other areas, it didn't improve much in this one.
I analyzed every last part of me I could think of: looks, intelligence, sense of humor, abilities and talents, how I came across, mood, tone and tenor of voice, body language, money, and a host of others. Except for being a bit moody sometimes, in none of these was I markedly worse than anyone else I knew who was going out on dates. I asked and practically begged friends to tell me what was wrong with me and none of them had an answer.
And then, it finally hit me: the answer was that I was obsessed with finding what was wrong. People could tell, either by me verbally telling them or just reading it on my face that I didn't like myself, that I was trying to prove myself to them. I was giving them power to determine my self worth, particularly with women I was interested in. I tried to be so super-nice to them that I probably came across as even more insecure than I was and, when I talked about how dismal I thought my situation would be in the future, I gave rise to feelings of pity in them and I don't believe a woman can truly be interested in a man she pities. She can pity someone she respects, but I think that respect has to be not only developed first, but remain strongest or else interest will dissolve or become impossible to spark.
So, in short, women pitied me and therefore couldn't respect me and so couldn't be interested in me. Men saw that I thought myself weak and so didn't look to me as a leader, which also hurt because that took away from what little respect I may have had among the women.
And all of this is being stripped away quickly by the realization that there's nothing special wrong with me. I'm far from perfect still, and always will be, but I'm not worse than anyone or undeserving of them. I'm every bit as valuable as they are. Accomplishments mean so much less now, my longing for a relationship to validate me is going away, my need to talk to people often (and usually about myself) has almost vanished - everything is just so much clearer now.
Except for one thing: in this, I have turned away from God. I know it's not right in my head, but I feel proud now of myself for having realized I already am what I wanted to be: good enough for others. I feel like I solved my own problem and, since it feels I did it without God, I have the ludicrous feeling of not needing Him. I need to turn back to the Bible, to pray again, to worship, to kneel at the feet of He Who loves me enough to die for me, to realize that the hurt I've gone through this past month from someone has been almost exactly what I've done to Him time and time again.
And here's the weird thing: all of this time that I've killed myself to be good enough for love has been a waste, not only because I was always good enough for others and just didn't realize it, but more importantly, that God loved me and I didn't have to be good enough. I couldn't be good enough. Even had I become the renaissance man I had thought everyone else demanded I be, I'd have not been good enough for it. And yet it was freely being offered. There is no anger at how many times I've rejected Him, no hurt feelings that I seek my own ends above His more times than I can count, no vindictiveness when my actions lead me into an emotional pit. There is only love, a love that always welcomes me back with open arms, a love that seeks to be my primary source of happiness because it knows it won't disappoint me, a love that seeks always for my good.
I don't know what it is about me that makes me not long for God with my heart. Perhaps I need to realize, now that I know I'm good enough for others, that I'll never be good enough for Him and that He'll still love me more than all of the others in my life ever could combined.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
