Pointless work and happiness

This summer I have desperately enjoyed pretty much every day including those in which I was sick for the challenge they presented. At this point, I don’t feel like there is something missing. Sure, my life is not perfect and there are a number of things I am disappointed about. I no longer live for the future, but in the moment of every day (this discounts the steps I think are wise like paying off credit, pursuing a degree and finding suitable employment). I think I have come to trust God in a way that the responsibility to make something of myself does not rest in my hands. I know my job and do not try to do God’s. He is the one who raises up and tears down. He brings poverty and riches. He knows the times, the seasons, the years of my life, and the purpose of my existence.

I do not know what He has planned for me, but I intend to enjoy the entire journey. In the situations I find myself, there is nothing that can change my state of contentment as long as my focus is on Jesus. I do not expect perfection of myself, but expect improvement.

I sometimes reflect on my past life in which everything I did surmounted to the expectations of others for the eventual accomplishment of some distant goal. Unfortunately the achievement of the goal was not worth the sacrifice taken to accomplish it and I often wondered at the happiness and success of those who did not live their life with dedication toward an ideal achievement.

In a previous reflection, I wrote on the stupidity of pursuing progress by sacrificing the life that it was supposed to improve. Yesterday, I watched another movie that took me back to the joyous simplicity of life that is lived outside the bounds of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Having food and clothes, let us be content (scripture). We do not have to accomplish something great in order to make our lives worth something. From another angle, that which is great is not often thought worthwhile to pursue.

From a Christian standpoint, this is a distortion brought about by sin. That which is great (love, service, righteousness, peace, etc…) is often sacrificed for the sake of material, physical, financial, or even mental productivity. In pursuit of becoming the ‘boss of all,’ very few undertake the path of becoming ‘servant of all.’ Yet, this is the means by which Jesus won his glory.

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As a student of economics, I appreciate the ability of industry to fight against poverty and allow people the luxury of food and water. However, more than this, I do not understand the worship of progress as the means to freedom for a people who often enjoy life more than those in advanced countries. In a question, which is more valuable: a short life of hard work and joy, or a long life of easy work without joy.  As the western world carries its treasures of economics to the developing world, it is not accompanied by a philosophy of how to use these treasures successfully.

While on the subject of Christian economics, I should note that the blessing of God is the source of prosperity and comfortable living. Certainly on an individual level, it appears that wealth can be gotten by unsavory means. However, on the national and ultimate levels, biblical prophecy and example seems to indicate that food, famine, health, power, wealth, etc... are gifts from the creator for nations of people to accomplish his purposes.

To further support this idea, one could site the numbers of people who when describing their success seem to attribute their accomplishment to some level of luck or providence. When duplicating their methods fails to produce the same results, one wonders what actually determined the accomplishment.  

Considering the western propensity toward an internal locus of control, it is understandable that I have neither seen nor searched for scholarship in business and economics from the standpoint of divine providence and a holistic lifestyle. Though I have touched on various ideas while browsing eastern philosophy, I don't believe that even these explorations have the full picture since they lack the Christian perspective. 

To end this short and somewhat scattered reflection, I quote a wise man who wrote in Ecclesiastes 6:1-3 “There is an evil I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to who m God gives wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them… his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things…a stillborn child is better than he.”

The Prison of Religion

In reflection this morning, I recalled once again the great freedom that I have discovered after finally entrusting my soul completely to God. As I read about the work God has done in my heart in the Bible and other materials, I wonder why it took so long for me to reach this point when the path was so obvious. The nation of Israel provides the perfect example of my own stumbling. The law was given to lead them to righteousness through faith, but they stumbled by attempting to fulfill it by their own works.

In my Christian experience, I recall reading through books and hearing the idea of surrendering to God. Of letting go and letting Him take control of my life. I knew from trial and error that attempting to be a good Christian was really difficult, but I thought that I could eventually achieve a more ideal state if I figured out the right steps to follow. Unfortunately, all of the steps that I thought were right required me to earn for myself what Christ has already offered for free. In my pursuit of holiness, I turned my back on what was Holy, despised the gift of salvation, and even tried to take the position of God.  Because it was derived from my own efforts, my Christianity looked good to the church, but had no heart.

The nice things I did for others out of duty became nothing because they were not accompanied by love. The smile I carried on my face only reflected the joy I knew I was supposed to have, and the peace I claimed to hold required such constant attention to maintain that I knew it would be gone shortly. Worst of all, I turned the God I claimed to serve into little more than a genie who failed at granting wishes, a judge who required more than I could ever pay, and a servant who by reason of His own laws would have to grant me access to heaven because of the knowledge I had obtained.

This is the point at which I stumbled. I had faith in my own understanding of the methods by which I could procure my own salvation. I knew that salvation was only available because of God’s grace and Jesus sacrifice, but I never placed my faith entirely in these two incredible facts. In this way, I turned God’s incredible blessing into my own incredible burden and insulted the cross through my inordinate sense of pride that I claimed was ‘biblical.’

Though I spent hours pouring through books on doctrine and theology to support my beliefs, I soon came to understand that every person I read had a slightly different understanding of who God was and how one could obtain His blessings. Even so, I desperately assaulted the philosophies that were incompatible with my own. Usually these had to deal with eschatology, baptism, church traditions, and highly controversial topics like predestination. If I could not prove to myself or to someone else that the alternatives to my methods would not work, I became uncomfortable with my own beliefs and began to worry about my ultimate end. The only glimmer of light that fell into this dark world vanished when I came to realize that many people do not believe in the idea of eternal security.

Only after this point, when I lost faith in my own ability to procure my salvation, did I acquire the humility that is necessary for one to place his faith in the goodness of God for salvation.