Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands.. 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
I share from personal experiences because we have so much in common; our origin, our flaws, our joys and sorrows and so much more. I find myself constantly exploring how God’s creative and redemptive love plays out amidst our impure motives and messy lives. This being the case, our stories are valuable to each other. Your story will hold light and encouragement for me and I pray that mine might be that for you as well.
I mentioned on Thursday that this verse was one of two I had claimed for myself as a young Christian. Based on what I thought about myself at the age of 23 (which was not much), I just knew these verses fit my personality and would define my destiny. The other thought was from Psalm 131….
I do not involve myself in great matters, or in things too difficult for me.
If you read Thursday’s installment you know that my motives for the selection of these verses were likely not 100% God-inspired. I know now that at least a part of my conscious motives (since I was a young teen) have been “flight” – to distance myself from the things that caused pain. For me this was our family’s business and its president (my Dad) which I had come to associate with the intolerable pain of rejection and the undesirable aspect of complexity. Complex things are not too inviting if you have come to believe that your intellect and social skills are substandard. As convoluted as my thinking was, there was still even more to my unhealthy motives and identity issues.
The even-more had to do with the stigma of wealth. As a young kid I started picking up on the attitudes my friends had toward those with money. I didn’t like what I was hearing about golden spoons and where they should be stored. I did everything I knew to hide my social status from others but, in my small town, it was a futile effort. What was innocent in grade school and junior high became more malicious in the high school years. It was during those years I learned that some even hated me for my father’s success. I literally dreaded stepping into any social setting where this attitude might be lurking. Alcohol (and eventually drugs) became my refuge. They very adequately numbed the short-term pain while compounding the long-term pain.
After the better part of a decade of mixing alcohol and drugs with (or for) the toxic things going on inside of me, I had exhausted all hope of a future. At 23, I was utterly lost and in a rapid descent into darkness. Enter Jesus. He made nothing less than a dramatic entrance into my life, immediately setting this prodigal son free from a bunch of nasty stuff and introducing me for the first time to hope, peace and joy. It was awesome! My new mission, at least in part, became how to sustain this new sense of well being or better yet, how do I get more of this?” The question became; “What do I need to do?”
Some of the believers I threw-in with as a young disciple and many of the authors I began reading seemed to advocate austerity as the narrow path we must follow where we shall come to know Christ and become one with him. So, with their lead, I began blending “religion” (compliance to external and internal standards) as a means of pleasing God into my already contaminated motivations. I had come to believe monetary success spelled doom for my soul. Therefore to sustain my new blessed condition I must flee wealth’s overpowering allure.
In my personal sense of insecurity and inferiority, I had what I thought was an intuitive sense of my depravity. God knows much of the preaching I heard reinforced the notion that I was, at the core of my identity, essentially a sinful creature with prideful motives who would be incapable of managing financial increase or prosperity in any form. So the plan that formed in the dimly lit space of my heart was: flee from that possibility and temptation; work with my hands; insure a lower middle class wage; work exceedingly hard, (which had been the religion of my father’s family); fear God; and perhaps if I perform well I will please Him and consequently sustain (and improve?) my relationship with him. There were a few ticklish questions along this path toward God. One big one was just how poor does one need to be to become holy? Or, stated differently, at what point of financial success does one become displeasing to God?
I know this may all sound crazy, but I would have crawled on glass for the balance of my days to avoid going back to the waste, the pain and the darkness of my life before Christ. For a person like this who was driven to pray Psalm 139: 23 & 24 (search and try my heart and expose wrong motives), mine was fertile ground for God to work in. Through time and God’s province I would eventually learn that there is a big difference between the legalistic flight of religion and the liberty of being drawn to Someone. Paul laid into the Galatians for this same error.
Much of my understanding of who God is has come from how I have perceived Him answering this prayer to superintend the affairs of my heart. (like he forgot?) Again the irony is rich; that I would choose verses for the wrong reason, and through His intimate awareness and care for me, would permit me to end up resting in His arms after a frantic search for Him (like I was ever lost?). Carnal sin was the yoke that Jesus delivered this young prodigal from at 23. Religion was the even heavier yoke that Jesus rescued this elder brother from at from at 57. I am stunned by His kindness. (By all means read Tim Keller’s book, The Prodigal God. It’s a treasure.)
Note: I believe religion is the more binding yoke because it looks so impressive with all its accumulated doing. Inherit within the religious spirit is the deception that their doings have established a credit balance in heaven while in fact something to the effect of the opposite is going on. The doings within religion offer a false salve to the conscience of the wounded insecure heart. The religious do not know they are lost. Most carnal sinners are keenly aware of it.
I think a book could easily be devoted to exploring how wounded, rejection-prone people get entangled with “religion” which I think of as the human heart’s endeavor to comply with perceived standards of approved attitudes and behavior with the illusion that they are improving their standing with God. Much of my story is about getting unentangled from “religion” and finding myself progressively at peace with God, increasingly at rest in His love, satisfied with His grace and secure in my identity as a saint.
It is all about discovering who we are in Christ and resting in him alone. It is about becoming the human beings that were originally created in his image. It about the irony that our efforts to do anything to preserve or create relationship with God is the undoing of enjoyment of something priceless that can only be received as a pure gift. Doing undermines being. It is the essence of religion. Right doing flows naturally from hearts at rest in Christ. I really do not know how to improve upon this deal.
Father, Help us to see where we have undermined Your grace through our entanglement with religion. Heal our hearts that we might truly enjoy You. Expose religion for what it is – a demonic ploy to distort our image of You, others, ourselves, and the Life of God that is embedded in our story. You are a good Father. Thank You. Amen.