Ecclesiastes 2:10 NIV
I denied myself
nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and
this was the reward for all my labor.
What Matters Most To You?
This year I have been working as a substitute
teacher. I receive class assignments by
going to a website that tracks my workdays on a calendar. When a teacher makes a substitute teacher
request, it pops up on my calendar and then I can decide if I want to accept
the assignment or not. Some are for half
a day and other for six full hours. Sometimes
teachers request me personally but usually the assignments go out to all the
pool of substitute teachers and the first of us to accept the job for the day
gets it. Recently I accepted a job
working in a kindergarten class at a particular school but within an hour, I
was removed from the job and the notice came to me that my services were no
longer needed. I was disappointed to
hear this as you never know when a job will come available or even if one
will. A week later another kindergarten
class assignment from the same school popped up and I quickly accepted the assignment
but again, after a few hours, I was notified that my services were no longer
needed. I had heard that sometimes
teachers post jobs and then remove them if a favorite substitute of theirs
becomes available to take their class and I grew increasingly offended the more
I thought about this. I had never worked
at the school that had these kindergarten assignments and so I was pretty
certain the teachers there didn’t know me.
Did the teacher pull the assignments from me because I was a man? It smacked of discrimination to me! What also bothered me was that once a
substitute teacher accepts an assignment for a certain day that person is
locked into it and is not notified of other possible assignments for the same
day. One can decide to not take the
assignment later but then that person can’t work that day for any other
teachers. If a teacher cancels an
assignment too late, the substitute is prevented from accepting another job for
the day. I began to stew over this and I
considered sending the teacher that pulled my assignment an email expressing my
feelings about her doing so. It felt
like I was rejected and treated unfairly.
I wanted the teacher to know that I was not just a name on a list but a
real person who did not like being rejected or considered not good enough for
her class. I counted; my needs were
important and I deserved more respect.
Perhaps you too have felt rejected and wanted to
make sure others knew you counted, that you ought to be appreciated. You have been pushed aside or gone
unnoticed. Have you ever wanted to
shout, “Look at me”? “I can do the
job!” “I should get the promotion!” “Love me too!” “Pay attention to me!” “Care about me!” Maybe you feel that way now; that your hard
work and creativity and sacrifice is not given the value it deserves. You feel frustrated that you might never
achieve your goal, never accomplish in life what you think you should. You are at a dead end and it is maddening to consider
that your life is unfulfilled and you may never reach your potential. What should you do? How does one respond to feeling boxed into a
corner of lost dreams and anonymity?
Should you in some way “fight back” and reclaim your life?
A pillar of modern humanist psychology is the call
for “self-realization”. By humanist, I
mean any treatment of psychology that does not view humanity mechanistically as
if people are little more than machines.
Nearly everyone who sees people as really free and independent believes
that a goal for all of us is “self-realization” or the very similar
“self-actualization”. It is held by
nearly all that we ought to make it our goal in life to assert ourselves, to
gain our place of prominence among others and fulfil our purpose. Many Christian teachers believe these
strivings are essential to having a good life.
In fact it is assumed by many that self-realization is God’s plan for
us. We do of course see examples of
self-realization being practiced in the Bible; it is not just a modern
phenomenon…one could say it goes as far back as Adam and Eve.
Let’s consider each of the three strivings that put
together are known as self-realization.
The first, the urge to establish one’s worth is illustrated by King
Hezekiah’s actions when representatives of the Babylonian government came to
visit him. Hezekiah received the messengers and showed them all that was in his
storehouses — the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine oil — his armory
and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in
all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them. (2 Kings 20:13 NIV) Most of us would say that there is nothing
wrong with asserting ourselves. We need
to let others know who we are and what we have done. In Hezekiah’s case, he simply pointed out how
productive his work had been and the success he achieved. Hezekiah extended his own reputation by
giving the tour of his possessions but forgot something critical in doing
so. He did not gain his wealth on his
own.
A second component of self-realization is the push
to gain prominence. We all believe we
should be given the opportunity to make something of ourselves and Aaron and
Miriam were not exceptions to this. The two
were frustrated that Moses their younger brother, who was charged with leading
the nation of Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land was not giving
them enough say in the decisions being made.
The nation of Israel needed their leadership they believed and it
offended them to not be more involved in how the nation was run. Miriam and Aaron wanted Moses to show them
respect by deferring more to them when he made decisions and directed the
people. Finally their frustration
spilled out in the infamous complaint, "Has
the Lord spoken only through Moses?" they asked. "Hasn't he also
spoken through us?" And the Lord heard this. (Numbers 12:2 NIV) Is this any different than trying to get a
promotion you think you deserve, wanting your husband or wife to respect all
you do for the family, being upset that you aren’t recommended for a teacher’s
assistant position, getting frustrated for the lack of support you receive in
the church motions you present, or being left off a committee because others in
the club are move popular? Who doesn’t want
to be known for the good they have done and the insight they have? The push to gain prominence is natural and
normal.
A third component to self-realization is the common
goal of wanting to fulfill one’s purpose.
Books have been written on this topic and many have decided this is our
most important task in life, fulfilling our purpose. If we look at Demas from this perspective, we
can take exception with the Apostle Paul’s complaint about him. Paul said of Demas,
“Do your best to come
to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has
gone to Thessalonica.” (2 Timothy 4:9-10 NIV) No one wants to be accused of desertion but
if you take Demas’s position in this, he was simply fulfilling his
purpose. Who knows why he left
Paul? Maybe his family needed him. Perhaps he wanted to take up leadership in a
church where his talents could be put to better use. It might be that he had always wanted to be a
lawyer and so he was following his dream.
Can we really fault Demas for wanting a change? Perhaps Demas really did know what was best
and he was upgrading the quality of his life.
Can that be criticized?
In every example described we have self-realization
exhibited in real lives. None of these
people thought that what they were doing was wrong. They in fact probably were congratulated by
friends and perhaps also family members for making tough decisions to put their
lives together. Self-realization is
reasonable and even celebrated yet it is not Christian and not even
possible. For those who decide to build their
lives without God, self-realization is normal and natural. The belief that we stand alone in a world
that is sometimes for us and other times against us is growing in popularity
but irrational. The push for
self-realization rests upon the belief that in the end it is just me and just
you who must decide how we are to live and what we will do about the direction
of our lives. But what if we aren’t
alone in this? What if each of us is
more than just one?
There is a declaration the Apostle Paul makes that
is rarely taken as seriously as its importance to humanity warrants. Do
you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom
you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.
Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV) This conclusion that Paul draws and that we
must consider if we are to fully think through who we are and what we are doing
with our lives is that each of us is never independent. Job, despite his misery, realized not
pessimistically but realistically the part God plays in each life. Man's days are determined; you (God) have
decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed. (Job
14:5 NIV) It is impossible to be in
charge of what we do with ourselves if God decides how long we shall live and
what will come of our accomplishments.
The prophet Daniel told the Babylonian king Belshazzar that it did not
matter what he hoped to get done, the Lord would not let him live until morning
and the kingdom he so proudly ruled and worked to preserve would be pulled
apart. “…God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end…Your
kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians." (Daniel 5:26-28 NIV) The prophet Isaiah quoted God when he
declared the situation each person faces, For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn
it back? (Isaiah 14:27 NIV)
Whatever we have planned or look forward to getting
done must take into account that how long we live is determined by God. The writer of Ecclesiastes, whose wisdom is
unmatched by those not named Christ or Paul, pointed out that no matter what we
accomplish or how close we come to reaching our potential, the entirety of our
accomplishments slip from our hands in the end and all we will be left with is
our souls, the fate of which is determined by our Creator. The myth of self-realization is as ludicrous
as the belief that the moon is made of green cheese. Every decision we make must take into account
God and what He is doing with us. The
thought that is the most reasonable and rational at any moment is the one Paul
offers. “I am not my own. I am bought with a price.” Because this is so, self-realization is
impossible. As we shall see, God not
only determines what will be the outcome of our lives, He is a part of every
action we take and every thought we generate.
We don’t exist as just self.
There is more to us than that. And we might add, “Thank God it is so!”
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