The Two Forces Driving Humanity

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!”