Quote of the Week

"The ideal human existence is not eternal leisure or an endless vacation - or even a monastic retreat into prayer and meditation - but creative effort expended for the glory of God and the benefit of others."

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, p. 48

Finding Significance in All the Wrong Places

Just read a great article by Mark Galli on Generation Y's pursuit to "make a difference" in the world. Mark Galli is the managing editor for Christianity Today and an insightful writer. He brings up a number of great points about how a well-intended focus to make a difference can really be "ego masked as altruism".

Think of it as the dark side to the search for significance and arguably, it's not simply limited to the Gen Y populace. Truth is, the striving for significance can be life long and unrelenting.

What makes this a confusing topic is that the desire to "make a difference" isn't necessarily bad. In fact, it most circles and circumstances, it's actually something to be admired. After all, far better the desire to make a positive impact than the trivial wasting of a life. After all, isn't the cultural mandate in Genesis 1 to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it", a command to make a positive difference in this world?

Yet, when the search for significance is not rooted in an understanding of our identity in Christ, it is a harsh master. Seeking significance can easily become another means for self-justification and self-glorification - "if I feed the poor and heal the sick, my life will matter". Finding our identity in what we do leads us to make idols of our own accomplishments. This is as true for the businessman who sacrifices family for fortune as it is for the misguided missionary who finds justification in his sacrificial good works.

What guides us toward a right pursuit of significance?

I believe it starts with rooting our identity and delight in God. Delighting in our place as creatures made in His image, restored into fellowship with our Father. Whenever, I depart from regular meditation on my identity in Christ and the work of grace in my life, I begin to strive for significance in various, small, unprofitable ways. If unchecked, this striving becomes louder and more prominent in my life.

We need to remind ourselves of the privilege we have to serve the living God, yet doing so in a very particular way - that is, serving with an awareness that God "is not served by human hands as if He needed anything since he himself gives to mankind life and breath and everything". (Acts 17:24). This means realizing that "service to God"is less about doing something for God as it is receiving grace from God. When we serve, we are the beneficiaries of his grace, to do his work.

Finally, the one point Mark Galli makes is one worth remembering - that God honors and recognizes the little things in our lives - the greeting of a stranger, the kindness to a child, caring for an aging parent. In other words, making a difference "in the small" matters as much as changing the world.

Quote of the Week

"We are not primarily called to do something or go somewhere; we are called to Someone. We are not called first to special work but to God. The key to answering the call is to be devoted to no one and to nothing above God himself."

Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, p. 42

Pursuing Happiness at Work

Happiness in the workplace isn't something that has typically received much attention. The high tech business world that I work in isn't exactly the most nurturing of environments. People aren't as much concerned about your state of happiness as they are about the status of your projects.

But lately, there's been a "happiness movement" in the workplace. Books like The Business of Happiness written by former AOL executive, Ted Leonsis and Delivering Happiness by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh are just two examples of how happiness in the workplace is taking center stage.

There's no getting away from this reality - if you're unhappy at work, you're probably going to be unhappy in life, especially since the majority of your waking hours are spent at work. What if you don't like your job? Perhaps you're not intellectually stimulated, feel unappreciated or you don't like the commute. Maybe, you're having trouble fitting in and getting along with your co-workers.

The point is - what do you do if find yourself consistently unhappy at work? (other than firing up your resume and calling it quits)

There's no shortage of helpful resources with practical tips on how to get back on track in your work life. If you don't believe me, doing a Google search on how to be happy at work = 576,000,000 results. I'm sure that there's goodness somewhere in the 576 million results but as I pondered this recently in my own life, I came across the following in Psalm 90 -

"Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days" Psalm 90:14

I'm not eschewing the practical advice like "reframing your goals" or "take a 10 min break every couple of hours" but this verse from Psalm 90 seems to be pointing to something different. It's looking for happiness outside of myself or my present circumstance. In fact, it points to help outside of this world - which at times seems like the only place you can possibly find happiness. And, don't miss this - the psalmist is crying out for an experience of God's unfailing love because he believes it to be the essential ingredient to his happiness. He believes that knowing and experiencing God's love - the comfort of His nearness, the treasure of His presence, the faithfulness of His promises - is the key to rejoicing and gladness all his days.

The question for us is whether we're similarly convinced of this.

Quote of the Week

The truest lengthening of life is to live while we live, wasting no time but using every hour for te highest ends. So be it this day.

C.H. Spurgeon, Faith's Checkbook, June 22

Why Boasting in Your Humiliation is Good for Your Soul

"Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation..."

I've been pondering the seeming irony of this verse for the past couple of months. To the lowly, James instructs to boast in their exaltation but the rich are told to focus on their humiliation. It's counter-intuitive to way this world works but it's the way the invisible, other-worldly kingdom of Christ.

Many of us will, at times, find ourselves either as lowly or rich, depending on the circumstance. The focus of my meditation however, has been on what it means for the rich Christian, to "boast in his humiliation". The idea of humiliation in this context is stark and extreme. Boasting or making much of our humiliation does not come naturally to any of us, even less so for those who are rich or powerful. Yet, it's exactly the prescription James offers for those who are rich in the assembly of the church.

More importantly, how does one boast in his humiliation. Here are four ways that you may find helpful if on occasion and circumstance, you find yourself counted among the rich.

1. Consider our own mortality and finitude -

Reading James 1:10-11 in entirety sheds light on this -

"Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits"

The rich person ought to boast in his humiliation because he will pass away - his wealth, fame and power will not last. Boasting in your humiliation means reminding yourself and anyone around you) that your wealth and power is finite and will pass with time. It also means that you want live to as to demonstrate that this is true.

2. Live to pursue God, not wealth, power or fame

The admonition assumes that the rich man is pursuing wealth as the aim of his life. But boasting in our humiliation means demonstrating the folly of this approach. The wise rich believer who chooses to do this, will pursue God instead of wealth or self-aggrandizement of any kind.

3. Make plans with deference to God's will

James 4: 13-16 speaks to the mindset that undergirds this kind of plan-making. It is the kind of plan making that not only seeks to discover God's will but also depends on God's power to accomplish the objectives of the plan.

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

The temptation for some of us is to invest trust not in God but in our ability to execute well-crafted plans. When you're in a position of relative wealth or power, you might not be aware of your daily need for God's provision. God calls such presumption - evil boasting. Rather, we ought to make our plans with deference to God's will and with an awareness of our need for His blessing.

4. Remember your true identity.

Boasting in our humiliation means keeping in mind our true identity as sinners saved by the grace and generosity of God. While there isn't a particular verse in James that clearly illustrates this, it is unquestionable that James himself understood this. He chose to address himself as "...servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" even though he was, humanly speaking, the brother of Jesus. In the words of Paul, James chose to count his familial relationship "as loss" for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus. Whether rich or poor, we were spiritual orphans, adopted into God's family and now we enjoy full privileges only as a result of God's kindness.