I have just discovered something disturbing about myself: I'm okay with mediocrity (it helps to start saying it out loud).
I've made "showing up" my own brand of success, silently congratulating myself for being such a selfless donator of my time. Well, at least I'm here, I say to myself. Those people didn't even come. The problem is, when showing up is all it takes to succeed, what do I do once I've arrived? I mean, once you've won the game, is there any reason to keep playing?
I think I'm coming close to pinpointing some of my motivation problem. I do not have great expectations. Instead, I set the bar so low that it's nearly impossible not to succeed. Without great expectations and nearly unreachable goals, it makes the epic life decidedly unepic.
The reason I'm discussing this is because so much of it relates to how I see my role in "The Church" (by "The Church" I simply mean whatever community of believers I happen to belong to at any given moment) and the post a couple months ago about living strategically. We were made to live epic lives, which is not possible when there is no conquest or war. Setting goals is great, but if the goals themselves are not great, achieving them means nothing.
This is a huge subject, and there's a lot more to it. But I wanted to introduce the idea and confess that until now, I have had a misunderstanding of what it means to achieve and succeed, and I'm afraid I have severely overestimated myself.
If anyone out there has any additional thoughts, I'd be glad to read them.
Jeff
8 comments:
Now you are meddling! You are messing with the current version of the American dream, 'dream that you will be rich and famous by doing the minimum and playing the lottery!'
Just as being around people with great expectations inspires us to achieve more and be all that we can be, so being around people with a 'just show up' mentality is contagious as well.
Of course the question is, who is going to change the course of things, who is going to stand up and raise the standard. As a leader I know that is part of my job, but it takes many to change the course of things.
I guess that is why I am excited about the Strategic Leadership Team. I feel like they are a group of people who are dissatisfied with the status quo.
I pray the Lord will infect us all with a holy dissatisfaction with the way things are and empower us by His Spirit to live the kind of epic lives you are talking about!
Rod
Hi there Jeff, great article but I just want to comment on the part about 'we are made to live epic lives'.
From what God has been showing me 'in my own stream' (River analogy) is that this kind of belief can have us defeated right from the get go. If I understand the word epic correctly, it mean heroic or grand thus trying to live "epicly" can put even more great expectations on oneself than what may necessary. I do not mean that one should be a total slacker or underachiever or that one should not live strategically but instead that one needs to live with the desire that everything we do, epic or simple, is for Him and only for His glory. Then even the simple things become epic, really, and the only question to answer is for whose glory do we do the things we do do, ours or God's?
Like I said earlier, in my own stream/life, the big lessons of late is that there is so much wonder and beauty in just 'being'. For most humans 'just "be"-ing' is hard. We always want to "do" something, anything as long as it's great or epic - but again, for whose glory? The high bar may just be allowing God to be God in our lives, individually and collectively as 'the church', and not trying to be more than what He may want us to be at any given moment. No performance needed, no pretenses, no masks, no hypocrisy, no anything but our bare self presented to God out of love and thanksgiving to Him, like a little child who is humbly innocent of these pretenses and simply is who he is. How freeing is that?
I liked the way God shows us things about ourselves but like you said, it can be disturbing; I think it's God's grace and love, though! It's done with a sincere love to help us out of the dilemma of living selfish lives (that's where mediocrity resides), one that we all seem to fall into daily, no one exempt, yet not always see in ourselves. Yet we readily see in the next guy, I might ad. We cannot NOT do the stuff we see in others because we are just as human as they, it's just that we just don't see it in our own self or excuse it - because of this or that good (for ourselves, of course) reason.
I hope that we, as a, and the, church begin to see every other believer as a/the church. The whole thing about 'church' has a new deeper meaning to me lately ... another thing going on in my stream lately. I have been so narrow about what the church is to be that it's sort of sad but He's teaching me; and yes, I agree that it is a huge subject.
Sometimes when I write a comment, I wonder if I am even remotely relating to what you are really trying to get some dialogue on. That is the case once again. Maybe I just off in my own thoughts, who knows, but I hope I've made some comments that go with what you are trying to say here.
Keep writing! I am a fan of this blog.
Maria
Maria,
I don't think you are off topic, just the other side of the coin. I hear what you are saying about interpreting epic as wonderful, awe inspiring, etc. and it becoming all about us. I loved your point about whose glory it is for. I think that makes all the difference. When we are giving it all for Jesus there is something pure and holy about it, but when it is about self it is like rottenness to the bones! Either way, whether we just show up and thing we have won or if we give it everything only for self glorification it is so displeasing to the Lord. He deserves all of us, and that includes a whole-hearted effort for His glory.
I don't believe there is such a thing as off topic Maria! Anyway, I appreciate all the thoughts. I do think you've hit on an important point with your painful rhetorical question: "for whose glory?"
I like the implication that anything truly epic must be driven by a passion for the glory of God, and not man. Anything man has ever done to try to achieve his own glory has resulted in failure and ruin. . .the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, the Spanish conquest of the new world, Hitler's attempted domination of Europe. . . it's all rather disgusting.
Yet in the simple and the ordinary, God's glory can still be found. God meant us to share in the glory of his kingdom. We were created for royalty, and no matter how base our lives seem, we are all partakers in the kingdom.
That's what I love about the gospel. It takes the ordinary, and makes it extraordinary. It takes the inglorious and makes it glorious.
It's really beginning to resonate with me this Christmas. There is so much irony in the way God came to us--unexpectedly, unkingly even--not the type of "epic" (since we're using that word) start we'd expect for the savior of man. Yet in that coming was the glory of God. The same glory we get to share!
I wonder. . .what sort of expectations do you suppose Jesus had?
I love your question, Jeff! Been mulling it over for days now but I must confess, I for one, still don't know if I can answer it (but sure would love reading someone's thoughts on it). It's been fun for me to chew on it though I am off on all kinds of rabbit trails but I love thinking about the mystery of Jesus.
Kind of in the vein of mystery, I found a wonderful aphorism: “It is impossible to know God - but you have to know Him to know that." (Fr. Thomas Hopko). I don't know anything about Hopko other than this was on another favorite blog of mine called Glory to God for All Things in which is run by Fr. Stephen, an Orthodox priest. Fr. Stephen also added an aphorism of his own to go with the one by Hopko: "It is hard to be deluded when you don’t claim to know anything". Both grabbed me and I'd like to share them with this blog.
On your "what it means to achieve and succeed" point...
I've been confronted with what it means to be productive, successful, or fulfilled since I've quit working and have been home with my baby these last six months. I worked eight years before I had a kid, and before that was a college education all aimed at getting out, getting a job, and earning money doing something I felt was worthwhile.
When I had Drew, the end of my working was very abrupt, and here I was at home all day changing diapers and taking care of a baby, and maybe getting a little laundry or housework done. As a health care provider working 40 hours a week I definitely could see the "work of my hands" so to speak and felt very productive. Now, if I got a load of laundry done by the time Jeff got home I was doing good--and felt lazy, like a failure, and I questioned the value of my job as a mom and a wife, even tho I knew it was very valuable.
I guess I say all this to point out that I have to believe that if you are in the place God has put you, doing the things He has asked of you, that is the most glorifying and epic work you can and should be doing. I have to believe that changing diapers, playing silly baby games, and doing laundry are part of my epic journey and measure as productively as someone working 40 hours a week with lots of check marks on their to-do list. I have to remember that epic tales are only declared epic in their entirety, not after only one or two chapters full of mishaps and seemingly meaningless daily living. It's all part of the story and the journey.
Now, if you are not in the place God wants you and are not doing something God has asked of you or has challenged you to do that is a different story....
I just finished reading your 'gift exchange' entry, which by the way, I totally related to.
It's interesting that you mentioned the word expectations several times in the entry because I am still stuck wondering what sort of expectations Jesus may have had. My initial answer was He did not have any expectations at all, period, because of His God nature; then I'd think of His humanity. He had to have some kind of expectations. Back and forth I'd go. I was all over the place in my own head looking for a yes or no answer. But is there a yes or no answer?
Expectations have the potential for disappointments. He had an APPOINTMENT.
Jesus was on a mission to accomplish the will of the Father. He knew what had to be done, set His face like flint toward that purpose and just lovingly and willingly did it, fully at peace with Himself all the while.
Instead of expectations, and because He knew the difference between His Father's Kingdom and the kingdom of satan, He had compassion. He came to deliver us. Love in action.
Well, this is what I think right now but because it's so neat to learn more and more about God, He will soon show me something else 'wonder'-ful to ponder awhile. He is way more than I could figure out but I sure enjoy getting to know Him more and more ... I have 'great expectations' from Him, that He will reveal Himself more and more to me as I seek Him. I love that. That expectation never disappoints.
Maria
Maria
Post a Comment