If what you’re after is power … then you’d better forget about affection. It’s difficult to be after both.
If you’re interested in justice and not in mercy … you’d better not make any mistakes
If what you’re after is security … forget about ecstasy
If you seek comfort, you might have to relinquish meaning
If you’re consumed by your work … you’d better keep one eye on your relationships
If you’re ruthless on the way up … don’t root for kindness on the way down
It’s hard to be after the things we think will satisfy our earthly desires and the ones God created us for …. What dreams are we buying? … and if we manage to succeed, will what we get be worth what’s it’s costing us?
There’s a great little picture book – Hope for the Flowers … self-described as ‘a tale – partly about life and lots about hope – for adults and others’ … in which two caterpillars, Sprite and Yellow come upon a pile of caterpillars rising into the sky as far as the eye can see. “Do you know what’s happening?” one says to another. “I just arrived myself. No one has time to explain. They’re so busy trying to get where they’re going – up there,” came the reply. “But what’s at the top?” Stripe asked. Again, the reply:”No one knows that either, but it must be awfully good because everyone’s rushing there.” There’s only one thing to do reasons Stripe and he jumps right in. Caterpillars climb atop one another, pushing, shoving, and knocking each other indiscriminately off the pile in an all-out effort to “get to the top”. Eventually Stripe pushes through the clouds only to find there’s nothing “up there”. “High up there”, he concludes, “only looked good from the bottom”. And he climbs back down.Pastor Mohn said it very similarly back in March:“If that’s all there is, we wind up right where we started.”It’s a zero-sum game, you only climb the pile if you’re willing to knock your neighbor off. Our neighbor becomes our obstacle, our enemy rather than our brother, only someone in the way of our ambition for “what’s up there”.So Stripe heads down the pile telling everyone he sees that “there is nothing up there” and that they would be so much the better for building cocoons; that they could fly if only they become butterflies. “I saw a butterfly – there CAN be more to life,” Stripe realizes.The pile of caterpillars climbs on, ignorant of the beauty contained within each of them. There is in each of us a butterfly … and Pastor Mick said it best when he said “You need not be perfect, you need only to be the ‘perfect you’. God has had a plan for you since you were in the womb. You just have to find out ‘what that is’ because it doesn’t come with blueprints”. And we won’t find it by knocking our neighbors “off the pile” only “to wind up where we started”.
What does it take to satisfy us? Often when we reach the end of the rainbow, the top of the pile, the pot of gold doesn’t quite have the luster we had imagined. And if what dreams you’ve bought don’t satisfy, more of the same won’t either.
“I learned this from my friends who have sailboats,” Boyd whispers, “No matter how big your sailboat is, somebody’s always got a bigger one!” If I only had a bigger house, a wealthier husband, the boss’ office … and it doesn’t work. Arguing “which among you is greatest” is moot.
Sometimes we know how to spend, but not how to buy. … we tend to spend on the trivial and we’re often willing to pay a lot for it. If we equate “the pursuit of happiness” with sex, power & money, we grant ourselves the God-given right to exploit our neighbor or “do whatever we have to” to get what we want.
There's two morals to the story and they're what Maurice Boyd calls God’s Great Joke. I think it's a two-parter ...
Part I is that, in the end, these things don’t satisfy. There’s less on top of the pile than we imagine. Material rewards won’t satisfy immortal longings. Worldly possessions are not enough for other-worldly creatures.
So then there’s things James says are worth our going after them … character, humility, good-heartedness, sincerity. Pursuits worthy of children of God. How do you attain these things?
God’s Great Joke Part II: … is that …
These things you can’t get by going after them! … and the harder you try, the farther you are from getting them … Imagine trying to be humble and finally saying “Wow, I’m the greatest at humility!” It doesn’t ring true.
There are some people that are desperately trying to be happy and they’re some of the most miserable people on Earth. Out there, there are some people desperately trying to be original and they’re not even interesting. Because they’re after something you can’t get for the reaching.
These things come only by what C. S. Lewis calls “the principle of inattention” – they can be yours ONLY when you’re not looking for them.
… you only get these heavenly things, when you’re after something else, something ULTIMATE and ETERNAL.
Well … that doesn’t sound very concrete, does it?
Perhaps, the good news is that God has endowed all of us … you and I with what Boyd called A Lovely Ambition?
… something you don’t have to try hard at all to do or to be or to chase
… something you are so gifted at that when you find it, it’s as if you’re remembering it more than ever having learned it
… and when you’re “doing this thing” … telling a story, singing in the choir, playing in the band, helping others find their calling, dancing, nurturing K5er’s, loving your children, … well that produces a certain kind of person, the kind that says, well …
… it doesn’t matter if I ever sing at the Met as long as I sing with dignity and purpose
… it doesn’t matter if I paint a masterpiece so long as I paint with creativity, the best way I know how
… because when you’re doing these ULTIMATE and ETERNAL things, those other things … humility, sincerity, the good heart … fly up and land on your shoulder …you get all that thrown in!!
Unsought … it’s God’s good gift … given when least expected.
What do we really value? True worship someone once said is to put the right value on the right thing … rather than chasing after trivial things God did not create us for …
… if you do what you’re gifted to do, if you’re after ‘the perfect YOU’ and you do it with discipline and integrity, God says… THAT is ambition enough
Amen
