Adam's Story: A Search for Something More

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Last spring when I was staying in Austin, Texas, for a few months, I met a guy at church named Adam. As I got to know him, I learned that he had just become a Christian a few months earlier. His story of coming to faith turned out to be quite crazy, so I asked him if I could write it down and share it with you all. Here is Adam’s story.

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Once a month, sixteen-year-old Adam would make the 30-minute drive out to the sand dunes of northern Michigan with his closest friend. The two friends would leave for the sand dunes after dark, since they weren’t going there to hike or camp or sand-board down the slopes, but rather in search of a transcendent experience.

Once there, Adam and his friend would hike to the top of the dunes, completely alone as they looked out over Lake Michigan. They’d then split that month’s bag of magic mushrooms and spend the night tripping on the drugs. They’d stare up at the stars as they tried create a divine connection.

Some nights, Adam and his friend would have ecstatic experiences, where they felt connected to the unifying element of the universe. Other nights, though, they’d take too many mushrooms, and their drug trip would devolve into a nightmare, as the world felt like it was melting down around them.

While it’s not unusual for young people to try out drugs to get high or rebel, Adam was different; he was trying to satisfy his search for something more. Was there anything out there that could satiate his deepest longings and put him in touch with the divine?

Part I: Losing His Religion

Despite Adam’s interest in psychedelics, he didn’t grow up in a free-spirited family. Both of his parents had been raised in traditional Roman Catholic families, before meeting as undergrads at Xavier University, a Jesuit college in Cincinnati.

Adam’s dad’s family had been particularly devoted to Catholicism, with their home in a Kentucky coal mining town decorated throughout with crucifixes and statues of Mother Mary. Adam’s dad, however, started to question his Catholic beliefs during college and decided he was an atheist.

Adam’s mom was unfazed by her boyfriend’s loss of faith and they stayed together, getting married soon after graduation. Adam’s parents then bounced around the Midwest as his dad pursued graduate school, ultimately receiving his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Adam’s dad was looking for a place to practice medicine, so his parents moved to Traverse City, Michigan, where his dad was hired as an emergency room doctor.

This was 1972, and emergency rooms were a new innovation in medical care. As Adam’s dad worked hard to get the Traverse City emergency room up and running, he spotted a lucrative opportunity: what if he helped hospitals across the country staff their emergency rooms? So Adam’s dad quit his job at the hospital after just a year, and together with another ER doctor, started an emergency room staffing company.

The business took off, and Adam’s dad was soon flying all over the country to secure ER staffing contracts. Within a few years, his company was running the ER services for 50 of the largest hospital systems in the country. Back home in Traverse City, Adam’s parents were also building a family, and soon they welcomed two daughters, before Adam was born nine years later.

But there was a hidden cost to the business's success. Adam’s dad was constantly traveling, and he soon started a series of extramarital affairs all over the country. He’d strike up a new romantic relationship in each new city, promising to each woman that he’d soon leave his wife and marry her.

When he’d eventually get tired of each affair and move on, the jilted women would often get revenge on Adam’s dad by calling his mom in Traverse City and letting her know about her husband’s unfaithfulness. These constant affairs destroyed their marriage, and Adam’s parents got divorced when he was just two years old.

This meant that as Adam grew up, he was exposed to two different views towards religion. Adam’s dad remained a staunch atheist and believed that religion was just a way to control people and help them be less scared of death. To him, church was nothing more than a crutch for people who couldn’t handle life. There wasn’t much time for religion anyways, since Adam’s dad’s company continued to grow, eventually reaching over 1,000 employees.

Adam’s mom, however, had a more favorable view of religion. While she didn’t express any personal belief in Christianity, she’d take Adam to the local Presbyterian church on Christmas and Easter, hoping to give her son some familiarity with religion. These occasional drop-ins gave Adam a shallow understanding of Christianity’s basic ideas, but he had no clue what any of it meant.

By the time Adam turned 18 and left for college at the University of Michigan, his dad’s views towards religion had won out. Adam saw Christians as close-minded people stuck in a bunch of backward traditions that were no longer relevant. While he still believed in a spiritual world, he saw psychedelics as a more interesting way to pursue contact with the divine.

Part II: Are You Saved?

Adam majored in psychology at Michigan, but his real interest was in Eastern religions. He became fascinated with Buddhism and Hinduism, drawn in by their promises of wholeness and total fulfillment. He read every book he could find on the two religions and continued to use psychedelics to chase after transcendence.

Outside of his interest in Eastern religions, Adam’s other main activity was singing. He loved to sing and was a part of both the university’s main choir and its men’s glee club. So when a friend asked him to go with her to a gospel choir’s rehearsal so she wouldn’t have to go alone, he said sure.

At the rehearsal, Adam found that he really enjoyed singing the old African-American spirituals. His friend decided not to join the group, but Adam kept going back, making him the only white person in the entire choir. He attended every rehearsal and joined the choir as they performed at local churches on Sunday mornings, singing about the enduring themes of Christianity.

After three months in the choir, though, the director approached Adam with a question: “Adam, are you saved?” While Adam wasn’t sure what it meant to be saved, he knew that he wasn’t. So after paging through a Bible that the director gave him, he emailed the man to let him know that he was more of a Buddhist. Adam wasn’t offended by the director’s question, but he knew his beliefs were at odds with the group, so he stopped participating in the choir.

As the end of college approached, Adam still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. He had briefly entertained the idea of joining his father’s business, but despite his dad’s excitement at the possibility, Adam realized that given their different personalities, trying to follow in his dad’s footsteps would be a disaster.

So after graduation, Adam decided to move to Boulder, Colorado, to spend a few years snowboarding and figuring out what was next. Since Adam wasn’t interested in his dad’s business, his dad soon sold his business to a larger staffing company for a significant payday, making him quite wealthy.

While Adam just wanted to snowboard, his dad said that if he took classes at UC Boulder to make him a more well-rounded person, then he'd pay for Adam's living expenses and give him an allowance. This sounded like a great deal to Adam, and soon he was off to Boulder with his dad’s credit card in hand, excited to experience life as an adult.

Part III: Joining Access

Once in Boulder, Adam settled into a life of snowboarding and classes. He was still interested in singing, so he decided to take a vocal performance class from a local voice teacher. Adam enjoyed her class, so when she invited him to attend a special vocal performance seminar with another teacher, he signed up.

This vocal performance seminar was sponsored by an organization called Access Consciousness and promised to give the attendees the mental tools they needed to handle the stress of performing. Adam had never heard of Access Consciousness before, but he appreciated the seminar and found it helpful.

Intrigued by this organization, he looked online for more Access Consciousness classes and found a more general one that promised to help you clear your limitations and step into your full capacity. Adam was lonely after his move and this seemed like a good way to meet people, so he decided to go.

Adam enjoyed this class as well and appreciated the opportunity to talk about life with other interesting young people. While Adam wasn’t exactly sure what this new group entailed, he soon started to sign up for more classes, using his dad’s credit card to pay the fees.

Adam didn’t know, though, that Access Consciousness wasn’t just self-help seminars, but rather an offshoot of Scientology. In 1995, a man named Gary Douglas repackaged Scientology into a similar belief system with a self-help veneer. Douglas claimed that his new movement, Access Consciousness, would give people the practical tools to shift their mindset and change their lives.

As Adam got more involved in Access Consciousness, the classes started to go beyond self-help and became more like a science fiction novel. The class leaders taught that the earth was trillions of years old and that human beings had once been gods called humanoids. Humanity had experienced a fall from grace, though, so now everyone was limited by unhealthy mindsets.

What was the answer to this problem? Access Consciousness, which gave people the tools to access higher levels of consciousness and return to their god-like status. The key was to use clearing statements to break down broken thinking and set yourself free to achieve your ultimate destiny, a life of wealth and success.

While these ideas sounded strange, Adam enjoyed the community and all of the friends he was making. Plus, the teachings weren’t that different from some of the ideas he’d encountered in Eastern mysticism, so kept going to the classes.

A turning point came when Adam decided to fly down to Florida and take an advanced Access Consciousness class from the founder himself. Adam joined several hundred other young people at a resort, where they spent a week learning how to unlock the mindsets they needed to reach their potential. After each day’s lessons finished, the attendees would then stay up all night partying, processing what they were learning together as they drank until three or four in the morning.

The founder taught them that through Access, as insiders called it, they’d be able to realize the true nature of reality. He encouraged the young people to break free of their ordinary thinking and to regain the mental models they’d lost when they fell from their humanoid status. If they could do that, they’d experience a life of unlimited success and achievement.

Through the founder’s persuasiveness and the subtle pressure of the group, Adam found himself buying into Access’ belief system. He wanted to believe, after all, since this new group was giving him things he’d never really had in life, like community, purpose, and attractive people to party with.

Part IV: Going Deeper

So when Adam returned to Boulder, he took even more Access classes. These classes cost $2,000 to $5,000 a pop, but Adam told his dad that they were for personal development, so his dad paid for them all.

Eventually, though, Adam’s dad became curious about all of these expensive classes. What were they all for? After Adam told his dad about the basic concepts of Access, his dad told him to stop taking these crazy classes and move on with his life.

Access leaders had anticipated this type of pushback from parents and had pre-programmed their students with a negative point of view toward the family. They taught that if your family finds out about your new levels of higher consciousness, their limited mindset will try to keep you from reaching your greatest potential. In one of the intro classes, Adam learned that family was an acronym that stood for Fucked (up) And Mainly Interested in Limiting You.

So while Adam outwardly complied with his dad’s request to quit Access, he secretly kept taking classes. This continued for several years until Adam signed up for an Access class series on CD. The CDs were mistakenly shipped to the billing address on Adam’s credit card, which was his dad’s house.

When Adam’s dad opened the CDs and listened to them, he realized that Adam was still involved in Access. His dad was furious, so he canceled Adam’s credit card and completely cut him off financially. This caused Adam and his dad to stop speaking to each other and become estranged.

Despite losing his relationship with his dad, Adam continued to get more involved in Access. He started dating another woman from the group and they eventually got married. Adam and his wife then moved to Austin, Texas, to work at a friend’s Medicare billing company.

Their real goal, though, was to become influential Access teachers. They dreamed of a future where they were teaching Access classes to thousands of people and raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in course fees. And so they mapped out a five-year plan: they were going to make it to the top of Access Consciousness.

Part V: A Change in Fortunes

As Adam and his wife settled into life in Texas, they received terrible news. Adam’s dad had died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 65. Adam and his two older sisters were shocked by his death and struggled with the complicated feelings they had towards their dad.

While outwardly the siblings said all the right things at his memorial service, praising their dad’s work accomplishments in front of the executives from his former company, inwardly, they knew he hadn’t been a great dad. As the service closed with Elvis’ rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “I Did It My Way,” they were all too aware of how this attitude in their dad had led to the constant affairs that had destroyed their family.

This attitude, though, had also created tremendous financial success, and so after their dad’s estate was settled, Adam and his sisters each received a generous inheritance. Adam’s oldest sister retired immediately at the age of 49, even though she’d been a full-time student her entire life, never working an actual job.

For Adam and his wife, the inheritance money breathed life into their dreams of becoming celebrities in the Access world, since significant wealth was the ultimate sign that the mental tools were working. They began using the money to attend elite Access classes and develop a lifestyle of decadence.

Soon, Adam and his wife were flying first class to every Access event, where they would show up in custom-tailored Italian clothes and only stay in five-star hotels. Adam was always buying extravagant jewelry, spending tens of thousands of dollars on diamond rings and ornate necklaces. They constantly posted about their lifestyle on Instagram, showing their Access community how the teachings had worked for them.

Over the next five years, Adam and his wife spent over a million dollars living like this. Their progress towards Access celebrity-status was mixed, but by 2019, Adam and his wife were more deeply embedded in Access than ever. They were using it for their friendships, career aspirations, and belief system. Little did Adam know, but it was all about to fall apart.

Part V: Maybe Something’s Wrong?

In 2019, Adam's wife left for six weeks to help care for her cancer-stricken mom in Maryland. At home by himself in Texas, Adam was scrolling through Netflix one night when he came across a documentary called Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Adam thought it sounded interesting, so he started to watch.

The documentary featured different ex-Scientologists sharing about how they had left Scientology. As Adam watched, he surprisingly found himself relating to what they were saying. Their experiences in Scientology had been similar to his experience in Access, both for the reasons they had decided to join the organization and for the strange ideas they swallowed to stay in. “Hmm,” Adam wondered to himself, “Maybe there’s something wrong with Access?”

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Adam’s seed of doubt grew. He was struck by the strange reactions in the Access community to Covid, which caused him to look around for other viewpoints towards Access on YouTube.

He eventually found another video where former Scientologists shared why they had left Scientology. Adam had even more common experiences with these ex-Scientologists and realized how both organizations used similar ideas and emotional devices to brainwash their adherents and control their minds. He began to doubt his Access beliefs even more.

Adam’s house of cards came crashing down, though, when he came across an article in the Houston Chronicle about Access called, “What’s Behind Gary Douglas’s Scientology Knockoff?” As the article exposed the beliefs of Access Consciousness and the man behind it, Adam finally admitted to himself that something was deeply wrong with the group that he’d been a part of for ten years.

Adam then spent the next week reading everything he could find on Access and Scientology. He got in touch with an ex-Scientologist, who suggested he read a book called Combating Cult Mind Control. Adam tore through the book, realizing that he had experienced every one of the cult mind control tactics in Access that the author mentioned. He couldn’t deny it any longer; Access Consciousness was a cult.

Now, Adam just needed to talk to his wife. 

When Adam’s wife came back from caring for her mom, he sat down with her and told her his new views: Access was a cult and he was done with the group. His wife didn’t take the news well, though, and refused to even consider Adam’s perspective. Access leadership primes their members for these de-conversion conversations, teaching that anyone who leaves Access is unenlightened and just can’t handle the power available to them in the new levels of consciousness.

So Adam and his wife separated, at odds over Access, and began living in different wings of their home. In just a few months, Adam had lost his belief system, his community, his life aspirations, and now, even his marriage.

Adam and his wife divorced the next year, and he moved out into his own apartment in Austin and began preparing for a Doctor of Physical Therapy program. Adam’s life had been thrown upside-down, but the life-shaking changes weren’t done yet.

Part VI: A Different Kind of Dad

While Adam waited for his physical therapy program to start, he received an unexpected email from his oldest sister. Their dad’s long-time accountant, Tom, had just passed away, and Tom’s son wanted to send his father’s eulogy to Adam and his siblings.

Tom had been more than just their dad’s accountant, he and his family had also been their next-door neighbors growing up. Even after Adam’s parents divorced, the two dads and two moms separately remained close friends.

As Adam read Tom’s son’s eulogy for his dad, he was amazed at how different Tom’s life was from his dad’s. While both men were successful in their work, Tom’s kids actually loved their dad, as shown in the first line of the son’s eulogy: “My Dad was as good, as kind, and as generous as any of us can hope to be.”

The eulogy went on to describe what made Tom so special as a husband, father, and member of the Traverse City community. Rather than living a self-absorbed life filled with affairs like Adam’s dad, Tom had been committed to his wife and children for his entire life. He never missed any of his kids’ activities and was always finding ways to take them on special trips, whether that was a fishing excursion to Canada or a two-week road trip around Europe.

What struck Adam most, though, wasn’t how Tom lived, but rather how he died. Tom had been diagnosed with a rare lung disease in his late 60s, and he slowly wasted away until he went to the hospital for his final days.

Unlike Adam’s dad, who always became quiet, nervous, and fidgety whenever the subject of death came up, Tom strangely wasn’t afraid of dying. In the eulogy, his son described Tom’s final moments like this:

He fought his illness with every bit of strength he could muster, but when the time came, when the fight was over, he faced his passing from this world without fear. Perfectly coherent to the end, he was able to say his goodbyes. As my Mom and brothers and sister gathered around his bed, each of us hugging him in turn, he told us that he loved us. He told us that he was proud of us. Then he said, “I’m not going to need this anymore,” took off his oxygen mask, fell asleep, and twenty minutes later, went to join his parents, brothers and sisters and my wife, who I’m certain were all waiting joyously to hug him.

Adam was perplexed by this scene. How could Tom be so unafraid of death, knowing he was just minutes from the end of his life? As Adam read through Tom’s eulogy, he knew he wanted his life and death to look like Tom’s and not his dad’s.

But what made Tom so different?

As Adam looked for clues in Tom’s life, he honed in on his strong Catholic faith. Like Adam’s dad, Tom had grown up in a Roman Catholic family. But unlike Adam’s dad, Tom had continued to believe and attend church throughout his entire adult life.

This realization struck Adam. Maybe there was something to Christianity after all?

So the next week, Adam did what was previously unthinkable. He looked up a nearby Roman Catholic church and signed up for their Rites of Christian Initiation program. Every week, Adam attended these Christianity 101 classes, which introduced him to the basics of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Spurred on by these classes, Adam started to explore Christianity on his own. He soon came across Lee Strobel’s A Case for Christ, which helped him work through his questions and doubts surrounding Jesus’ resurrection.

Despite Adam’s growing interest in Christianity, his physical therapy program began and soon overwhelmed his life. He was struggling in his classes, so he turned his full attention towards his studies, leaving him no time to think about Christianity. Over the next year, Adam was solely focused on his physical therapy program and lost all momentum in his search for Christianity.

Part VII: Finally Finding Hope

This stalemate with Christianity continued until December of 2022. Adam had just finished his classes for the semester and was sitting around his apartment on the first day of winter break. Bored, he turned on Netflix to find something to watch. He figured that since Christmas was just a few weeks away he should watch something Christian. As he scrolled through the options, he came across The Chosen, a TV series that explores Jesus’ earthly ministry, and pressed play.

During the first episode, something strange happened in Adam. There was a scene where Mary Magdalene was sitting in a bar, drinking away her sorrows as she struggled with demon possession. Adam watched as Jesus walked in as Mary ordered another drink and said, “This is not for you.” Jesus then called Mary to follow him and put his hands on Mary, cleansing her demon possession and changing her from the inside out.

This scene rocked Adam, and he burst into tears as he watched. At that moment, when Jesus called Mary to follow him, Adam knew in his heart that Jesus was real and Christianity was true. Adam went on to binge all three seasons of The Chosen, watching every episode over the next three days.

After Adam finished watching the show, he started looking for resources from different Christian apologists. Now that he believed in Jesus, he didn’t want intellectual arguments to choke off his new-found faith. He soon came across Frank Turek’s book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, reading both books from cover to cover.

At the end of his monthlong winter break, Adam found a church near his apartment and went to a service. For the first time in his entire life, Adam considered himself a Christian. Even he couldn’t believe it!

Adam had been using the dating app Bumble for a bit, so on a whim, he changed his bio to say that his relationship with God was important to his life. Thirty minutes later, he matched with a woman named Claire.

Claire was also a Christian, but unlike Adam, she had grown up in a Christian home. As they went on dates and shared their stories with each other, Claire was able to help Adam make sense of his new Christian faith. They’d spend hours each week talking about the Bible, Jesus, and theology, wrestling through topics like sin, suffering, and justification by faith alone.

Claire soon introduced Adam to Tim Keller’s books and sermons, which helped Adam understand the intellectual arguments for both the gospel and a Christian worldview. He began to realize that his dad’s assumptions towards Christianity had been wrong; the Christian faith wasn’t opposed to thinking and reason, but rather satisfied the deepest questions and longings of the human heart.

Through these discussions with Claire and the work of the Holy Spirit, Adam began to change in unexpected ways. Christian beliefs that used to sound crazy to him, like waiting until marriage to have sex or being against abortion, now started to make sense.

Before becoming a Christian, Adam believed that humans were a plague on the planet and thought that the best way to serve the greater good was to never have children. After becoming a Christian, though, Adam began to see human life as not only valuable but uniquely precious. He sees how his previous lifestyle oriented towards non-stop entertainment, adventure, and personal gratification wasn’t actually satisfying, and has now sees marriage and family as a way to serve God.

But the most radical change from Adam’s conversion to Christianity has been in his perspective towards death and the future. He used to feel hopeless about the future, both for himself and for the world as a whole. But after putting his faith in Jesus, he now realizes that death has been defeated and that someday Jesus will return again to set everything right. This has given him the ability to look ahead at the future without fear.

Through these many years, God has gently guided Adam’s searching heart to find true rest in the overwhelming love and finished work of Jesus Christ. Twenty-five years after Adam began his search for the transcendent out on the Michigan sand dunes, the Transcendent came to him.

Loving the Way God Loves: A Story About Carol Cool

Carol Cool was walking down the hallway at work when her coworker Cyndi randomly asked her an unexpected question: “So what is it that you believe in anyway?” Carol and Cyndi hadn’t interacted often at work, but now, as Cyndi’s life had fallen apart, she wanted to know what made Carol’s life so different from hers.

It was no accident, though, that Cyndi had approached Carol with her question. Carol had been praying that God would send someone into her life who wanted to hear about Jesus. So when Cyndi asked Carol about her beliefs, Carol invited Cyndi over to her home so that they could talk about her Christian faith.

As their conversations continued, Carol eventually invited Cyndi to join her at church. Every week, Cyndi would march into Carol’s formally dressed Baptist church, wearing the clothes of an eccentric artist, and sit next to Carol in the second row. Cyndi kept going to church with Carol, and after many conversations and lots of love, she finally called Carol one night and said, “You’re right, I need Jesus.”

In a world where Christians struggle to connect with those who don’t know Jesus, Carol’s life stands out; not because she’s some evangelistic savant, but rather because she shows others the same love that she’s experienced from God.

Figuring out the road ahead

From a young age, Carol knew that she wanted to use her life to minister to others. She grew up in greater Philadelphia during the 1960s, hearing stories of her grandparents’ ministering with the Salvation Army to the New York City bread lines during the Great Depression.

While Carol’s parents weren’t in full-time ministry, they encouraged their children to use their lives to serve God. “We were raised,” Carol said, “To believe that there was nothing better we could do with our lives than to serve Jesus. It was the tenor of our home; even if you were a layperson your goal was to serve Christ.”

When it came time for college, Carol chose to attend Northeastern Bible College in nearby Bloomfield, New Jersey, hoping to use a Bible degree to go into youth work and eventually become a missionary. Some missionaries from her home church had attended the school, and she was drawn to the school’s small size and emphasis on studying the Bible.

As Carol went through college, she wasn’t sure what direction her life would take. She spent a summer abroad in Sweden exploring missionary life but found the experience incredibly isolating. This caused her interest in mission work to end, but since few churches were hiring women on staff, she wasn’t sure where God wanted her to serve.

During her senior year, though, Carol met a new transfer student named Leslie Cool. Les had started college at a nearby state school, but when he became a Christian during his freshman year, he felt God’s call into ministry and left his full-ride scholarship to transfer to the Bible college.

As Carol and Les’ relationship progressed, they decided to get married after their graduation. While Carol was happy to be engaged, she couldn’t help but wonder, how was she going to use her life to serve God now that she and Les were going to have bills to pay and real life to worry about?

An opportunity in retail

After their wedding, Carol found a retail management job at Bamberger’s, a Philadelphia-area department store that was owned by Macy’s, while Les went to seminary and worked as a meat cutter on the side.

Carol began to work her way up at the department store and was soon promoted to assistant store manager, before eventually becoming a buyer in the corporate offices. While Carol still had full-time ministry as a goal, she and Les were both so involved in doing youth work in their home church that she was okay with her retail work.

Soon, without her even realizing it, God started to carve out a unique ministry for Carol at her job. “I really found God using me in the workplace,” Carol said. “I always joke that I’m the kid who never had a rebellious phase, never smoked or drank, but God has ended up using me with people who were on the far edge of hating Christianity.”

While it might sound obvious, Carol ministered to her coworkers through her relationships with them. When Carol’s coworkers shared their challenges with her, she would write them down on Post-It notes and stick them on the edges of her computer monitor. When her coworkers asked her what the Post-It notes were for, she told them that they helped her remember to pray for them and their concerns. Her coworkers really appreciated this and it gave her opportunities to talk about Jesus without them feeling uncomfortable.

God particularly used Carol in the life of one of her bosses, Barbara. Barbara was a confident and successful businesswoman who had embraced polytheism and the occult, proudly telling her team about her many out-of-body experiences.

One day, though, Barbara’s mother died unexpectedly, and she asked Carol and another Christian coworker to pray for her. Carol and her coworker prayed for their boss and shared some Bible verses about the peace that was possible with God. Barbara left work and went on bereavement leave, but after she came back, she sought out Carol and told her, “Your God answer prayers!”

But Barbara was still skeptical of Christianity and especially wary of Christians. “If I never accept this Jesus of yours,” Barbara asked Carol, “Will you still be my friend?” Barbara had had previous run-ins with Christians who only saw her as a project and disengaged from her when she didn’t immediately convert to their faith.

Carol, though, developed a genuine friendship with Barbara, and over several years, found ways to share the message of the gospel with her, while at the same time refusing to base her love for Barbara on the condition of her becoming a Christian. Carol has remained friends with Barbara decades later and is still a part of her spiritual journey, encouraging her towards God.

Carol never set out to make her work a major place of ministry, she just prayed that God would give her opportunities to talk about Jesus. “Most of my evangelism has been people that I’ve just loved and cared about their lives and invested in,” Carol said. “And sometimes years later I’ve learned that they’ve come to know Jesus and that their lives have turned around. God has always used me at work in ways to make a difference in people’s lives for His kingdom.”

Using her words to serve

As Carol’s friendships with her coworkers grew, she and Les began adopting some of them into their home. A few came to live with the Cools for weeks or months while they were going through a tough time, allowing Carol and Les to love them and become a family for them.

Eventually, this spirit of inviting people into their home led to Carol and Les taking in two teenage girls, one of whom, Joy, they ended up adopting. With two teenagers at home now, Carol needed a job with more regular hours. So after 18 years in retail, she started to look for, in her words, “a mindless part-time job.” But God had other plans for her.

When a friend heard that Carol was looking for a part-time job, she asked Carol if she’d ever want to pack boxes at a print shop. Carol said sure! One of the tasks at her new job was to check to make sure the books were printed correctly before they were shipped. But much to her boss’ chagrin, she kept finding mistakes in the already printed books.

One day, four months into the job, Carol’s boss told her, “Come with me,” and walked her to his office. While Carol was sure she was about to get fired, her boss told her she was getting promoted! “We’re going to make you a proofreader,” her boss said, “Because we’d rather you find the mistakes before we print things than after.” And so Carol was introduced to the world of writing and editing.

When her husband Les was asked by their denomination to plant a church in Delaware, Carol found a new job proofreading and writing advertising copy for a large bank. Impressed by her writing, a coworker encouraged Carol to find more ways to write. So Carol attended a Christian writing conference, where she met a mentor who showed her how to write for Christian magazines. Soon, Carol was writing articles for a variety of Christian magazines throughout the country.

After Les took a call to pastor a church in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Carol transitioned into being a freelance writer and editor. At this time, a friend told Carol she was interested in becoming a Christian speaker. Carol suggested that the friend attend an upcoming conference for Christian speakers and volunteered to go with her for support.

While Carol was just there to encourage her friend, she went through the speaker training too and found that she loved it. She got all kinds of positive feedback from the other participants, so after she got home, her friend gave Carol her first speaking opportunity at a women’s retreat.

Now, Carol speaks at Christian conferences and retreats throughout the Northeast, helping her audience to understand God’s love and purpose for them. Through her speaking, she’s been able to tell others about God’s work in her life and minister to a variety of people. She has also written and published two books, “Finding Balance in the Circus of Life,” and “The 29 Cent Baby Jesus,” and continues to write on her own website at CarolCool.com.

What moves Carol’s heart

While Carol thought her life would involve more official ministry with a Christian group, she’s used the places that God has put her, whether in retail, publishing, or speaking, to serve God by loving the people around her.

That’s why Carol’s bohemian coworker Cyndi could march up to the front of Carol’s traditional church and sit next to Carol, even when she didn’t fit in. “Cyndi knew that she was loved,” Carol said, “That’s what makes the difference.”

Even now, forty years later, Cyndi still calls Carol her spiritual mom, even though they’re the same age, to recognize how Carol’s love for her has changed her life forever. “You have to love people where they are and trust the Spirit to move in their lives when they are ready for that. That’s what I’ve tried to do,” Carol said. “It comes back to loving the person the way God loves them.”

Walking With the King: A Story About Glenn Kroneberger

“Hello again, friends! How in the world are you?” the radio crackled as a young Glenn Kroneberger ate his bowl of shredded wheat. Every morning during breakfast, Glenn and his family would listen to “Walk With the King,” a syndicated radio program by Dr. Robert Cook, who served as the president of The King’s College from 1962 to 1985.

Once the program was done, Glenn and his two older brothers would grab their backpacks and scurry off to school. As the boys ran out the door, Glenn’s mom would always repeat Dr. Cook’s closing tagline from the show: “Walk with the King, and be a blessing!” Glenn didn’t know it then, but this phrase would become his life’s mission statement, challenging him to use his gifts to serve God and bless others.

Pursuing Young Dreams

Glenn grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore during the 1970s, the youngest in a family that was grounded in God and gifted with a love of entrepreneurship. From an early age, Glenn and his two brothers were always looking for new businesses to start, eager to earn some spending money.

Every Fourth of July, Glenn’s mom would drive her three sons to the fruit wholesaler at the Baltimore docks. There, these young entrepreneurs would buy crates of fresh lemons, filling the back of their 1969 Volkswagen Squareback to the brim. Once home, Glenn and his brothers would slice each lemon in half and insert a striped peppermint stick into the center, creating a lemon stick, a long-time Baltimore summer tradition. They’d then sell their lemon sticks at the local parades, hawking their sweet and sour treats to the crowds until they sold out.

But lemon sticks weren’t the brothers only business. When they got older, they bought a snow cone machine and a variety of flavored syrups. After building a wooden stand and setting up the equipment in the driveway, the Kroneberger snow cone business was born! Their business model was simple; one brother would run the stand and make snow cones, while the other two brothers would fan out through the neighborhood and drum up customers.

When they weren’t starting businesses, Glenn and his brothers loved to gather around their kitchen table and discuss their latest business ideas. While Glenn’s dad worked for a Christian ministry, he was an entrepreneur at heart and enjoyed encouraging his sons in their business dreams.

As they’d sit around the table, Glenn’s dad would often tell his sons stories about their great-grandfather, who had started Kroneberger Coffee Roasters in Baltimore in 1905. While Glenn’s great-grandfather eventually sold the business, a picture of him sitting in his 1920s Ford delivery truck with his name written on the side still hung next to the kitchen table, reminding the boys of their family’s entrepreneurial past.

Given these experiences, when it came time for college, Glenn knew that he wanted to study business. The only question was where? Glenn’s older brother Bryan, influenced by Dr. Cook’s morning radio programs, decided to attend The King’s College in Briarcliff Manor, New York. Once at King’s, Bryan would always invite his kid brother up to visit and to join his friend group on their winter ski trips. Glenn was struck by the group’s camaraderie and knew he wanted that kind of college experience.

So Glenn enrolled at King’s, ready to study business and see how God might use his gifts. After the initial ups and downs, Glenn fell in love with King’s. He especially appreciated how each professor began their class with a short devotional and prayer. This set the tone for each class, challenging Glenn to approach business through a Christian framework.

An Opening for Success

After graduating from King’s in the early 1980s, Glenn followed his two older brothers to Miami, where he took a job selling tropical plants for a large nursery to grocery store chains. He eventually grew tired of the corporate culture, though, and spotted an opportunity for a business; he could become a plant broker between the nurseries and the grocery stores.

So at 26, Glenn started his first business as an adult, buying thousands of tropical plants from different nurseries and reselling them to national grocery store chains. While the plant brokerage business took off, after several years of success, Glenn decided to move back to Baltimore. There, he used his profits from the plant business to open up two restaurants with his middle brother Jeff.

But the restaurant business was tough, and as the years passed, they found themselves working harder and harder for less and less money. Eventually, burnt out on restaurant life, Glenn told his wife Nancy, “We need to get away and think about life.” So they booked a flight to Sarasota, Florida, hoping that a weekend somewhere else would bring clarity to their future.

Soon after they landed, Glenn and Nancy fell in love with Sarasota, eventually deciding to sell the restaurants and move their young family to Florida. As they settled in Sarasota in 2003, Glenn wasn’t sure what was next for him.

One night, though, Glenn and Nancy invited another couple over to their home for dinner. As the two couples talked after the meal, Glenn’s friend saw the picture of his great-grandfather’s coffee-roasting truck hanging on the wall. “Glenn,” he said, “Have you ever thought about getting into the coffee roasting business?”

Unbeknownst to his friend, Glenn had already been thinking about this, and he ran to his office and grabbed an inch-thick folder that he’d filled with ideas about a coffee roasting business. As the two friends talked, they made plans to open up a new coffee business called Sarasota Coffee and Tea. Glenn would focus on the wholesale side, while his friend would run the retail shop.

The two friends soon bought a coffee roaster and took out a lease on a cafe, bringing the business to life. Glenn used his sales experience to establish accounts with restaurants and churches, while his friend focused on the retail shop. But just six months into the business, a wrench was thrown into Glenn’s coffee-roasting dreams.

After attending a coffee trade show together in Atlanta, Glenn’s business partner told him on the drive home that the coffee business wasn’t right for him and that he needed to get out. Glenn was blindsided. He hadn’t planned on operating the business by himself, but they figured out an exit plan for his friend and Glenn became the sole owner of Sarasota Coffee and Tea.

Glenn's entrepreneurial instincts took over, as he closed the retail shop and put all of his efforts into the wholesale business. He used his relational gifts to develop a devoted customer base, who were won over by the high-quality coffee beans. As the business grew, Glenn hired more and more employees and expanded Sarasota Coffee and Tea’s presence throughout Florida and the rest of the country.

A New Opportunity to Help

But a unique opportunity came when Glenn received an unexpected phone call from the owner of a large Sarasota restaurant. The restaurant owner had just met a businessman from Indiana who was trying to sell a shipping container full of unroasted coffee beans. Intrigued, Glenn gave the man a call.

The businessman turned out to be Martin Graber, a Christian man in his 80s who owned a large cabinet-making business. Martin had just been in Nicaragua on a mission trip, where he’d met Diego, a coffee farmer who was about to lose his farm to a predatory bank.

Moved by Diego’s plight, Martin came up with a plan to bypass the bank and buy a full shipping container of beans himself. That’s why Martin wanted to talk to Glenn: would he be interested in 37,500 pounds of green coffee beans?

Glenn wanted to help, but he first had to answer one question: was the coffee even any good? So Martin overnighted a sample to Glenn, which he roasted, ground, and brewed. “Wow,” Glenn thought to himself as he sipped the coffee, “This is some of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted!” Sarasota Coffee and Tea bought the entire shipping container from Diego’s farm and began roasting and selling the beans.

As the years went by, Glenn’s partnership with Diego continued to grow. Glenn purchased more and more coffee beans from Diego, helping him to escape financial bondage and provide his workers with better pay and new benefits like health insurance and school scholarships. Diego’s farm flourished, and grew from harvesting one shipping container full of beans each year to seven!

Inspired by this work in Nicaragua, Glenn started a sister coffee brand called Fresh Cup of Hope. Fresh Cup of Hope works to support local coffee farmers in Central America by buying their coffee and helping them follow better farming practices. Glenn also donates a portion of the profits to Feed the Children, a non-profit that works to alleviate child hunger throughout the world.

Today, twenty years after he started Sarasota Coffee and Tea, Glenn has grown it into a thriving company. Despite a pandemic-caused dip in its wholesale business, its e-commerce sales have doubled since 2020, setting the company up for future growth.

Through all of the ups and downs of Glenn’s entrepreneurial journey, he’s always sought to live by Dr. Cook’s encouragement to walk with the King and be a blessing to others. He adopted this phrase as his life’s mission statement, using it to guide him through his daily life. He also continued his mom’s tradition with his own two children, saying it to them every day when he dropped them off at school. To Glenn, “It’s a daily reminder of who we serve and how to live our lives.”

This multi-generational motto has helped guide Glenn to impressive heights, whether he’s helping a Florida restaurant find the perfect coffee roast or enabling farmers in Central America to live better lives.

How can other people put this phrase into action in their lives? “Don’t be afraid to dream,” Glenn encourages. “Ask the Lord for a vision for your life and He’ll provide it. Then don’t be afraid to act.”

How to Live a Life Beyond Success or Failure

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I was reading a list of people’s favorite books earlier this week and came across one with an interesting title. It was called Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary. Given my recent essays, I was curious what this book would have to say about being extraordinary, so I clicked over to its Amazon page to read about the book.

As I perused the book’s blurb, its sounded like a movie trailer detailing our culture’s desire to be extraordinary:

We say some people march to the beat of a different drummer. But implicit in this cliché is that the rest of us march to the same beat. We sleepwalk through life, find ourselves on well-worn paths that were never ours to walk, and become a silent extra in someone else’s story.

Extraordinary people carve their own paths as leaders and creators. They think and act with genuine independence. They stand out from the crowd because they embody their own shape and color. We call these people geniuses—as if they’re another breed. But genius isn’t for a special few. It can be cultivated.

The book jacket blurb went on to promise that if you read Awaken Your Genius, you’ll learn how to “give birth to your genius” and become “the universe-denter you were meant to be.”

While this all might sound good in the abstract, there’s one major problem: once you read the book it’s on you to go be extraordinary. By reading chapters like “Unlock the Wisdom Within” and “Unleash the Power of Play” you’re now supposed to have the insights and abilities to rise above your peers and become one of the top .001% people of all time, right there with Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Marie Curie.

I’m sure the author wants to help people, but this need to be a universe-denter puts an incredible amount of pressure on his readers. As this need to be extraordinary trickles down from different streams of society, it combines to form a raging river, pressing us to go faster and faster, all in hopes of hitting this abstract and undefined ideal of success.

Here’s what’s striking, though: Jesus didn’t see being extraordinary as a goal for the good life, but rather as a temptation that would distract him from his God-given purpose. When he was in the desert, Satan tempted him to do something spectacular with his life, something that would wow the people and make them think he was extraordinary.

To do this, Satan took Jesus to the very top of the temple and encouraged him to jump off. If you’re the Son of God, Satan said, then throw yourself off of here and God’s angels will catch you. This Evil Knievel party trick could have put Jesus’ name on the map, giving him an extraordinary claim that would win over other people’s applause and give him the jump start he’d need for a popular and influential life.

But Jesus wasn’t interested in Satan’s push to be spectacular. “You must not put the Lord your God to the test,” he replied, knowing that his ministry was going to be very different from what the masses of society wanted, both then and now. As Jesus shows us, the pressure to be extraordinary might seem like a virtue, but in reality, it’s a temptation away from God’s real purpose for us.

So what are we supposed to live for then?

Recently, I was reading a book about Francis of Assisi, the Catholic friar in the 1200s who lived a simple life of radical love for others. While there are many things I could share from the book, I was most struck by a phrase that the author used to summarize Francis’ life. He said: “If your only goal is to love, there is no such thing as failure.”

That phrase stopped me in my tracks. How freeing it is to recognize that life isn’t about climbing from ordinary to extraordinary, but rather about loving others. When you use your gifts, opportunities, and time to love others, you can stop using simplistic categories like success or failure to judge yourself, since God is using your life for His purposes whether you ever see big results or not.

This isn’t a message that they’ll ever give you a big book deal to write about or share at a 10,000-person conference. It is the message, though, of a life radically reshaped by Jesus’ love. As Jesus gave his final instructions to his disciples in the upper room, he didn’t stress their need to awaken their genius, escape conformity, develop their creativity, and live an extraordinary life. Instead, he said:

I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.

When we focus on our lives on loving others, it sets us from the constant analysis of whether we’re a success or failure and lets us entrust the results of our lives to God. Our lives become all about becoming a living sacrifice to honor and worship God, rather than climbing the ladder of success to get other people’s honor and worship.

The Bible is clear: loving others, not self-achievement, is the engine at the heart of a healthy and God-glorifying life. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, achievement without love is of little use:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Sadly, despite how often we hear this passage read at weddings, we have no interest in letting its message shape the values of our lives, even within the Christian church.

But while we struggle to love others, Jesus did so perfectly. He refuted Satan’s temptation to be extraordinary and used his life to serve and love us, humbling himself to follow God’s will for his life, even to the point of being put to death on the cross.

When we experience Jesus’ life-giving love, it changes us from the inside out, redirecting our lives from self-centered achievement to sacrificial love. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Now, the Holy Spirit works in us to make us more loving, using the day-to-day events of our lives to show how Christ’s love has changed us. This might seem too slow and ordinary for our in-a-hurry culture, but a loving life in service to God isn’t a little life, but rather one that’ll be exalted in God’s kingdom for all of time. That’s why Paul says in Philippians 2 that as a result of Jesus’ ordinary, love-filled life, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.

While it’s not easy to believe that God will do the same to us, especially when Satan tempts us to think that we’ll be a failure if we don’t do something extraordinary, we can trust that God will treat us the same way as Jesus, exalting our little acts of love through His eternal kingdom.

the key to resolving the tension between an ordinary and extraordinary life

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“Virtue is what you do when no one is looking. The rest is marketing.” — Nassim Taleb

We live in a culture that pushes us to want to not only be extraordinary, but to be extraordinary right now. We feel the pressure to achieve faster and faster, to try to keep ahead of our peers. We want to be the leader, not the follower; the big splash, not the wet concrete that's waiting to dry. 

Where did we get this expectation that we need to prove that we're extraordinary while we're young? While it's always existed, this mindset has been fed by things like the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. This list started in 2011, and for over ten years it has recognized thousands of young people who seemed poised to make an extraordinary impact. 

As the Forbes 30 Under 30 lists became more popular, it's been copied in every area of life. Regional cities, niche industries, and even the Christian Evangelical Industrial Complex have jumped onto the trend, trying to identify extraordinary young people who are doing the most noteworthy things. 

Why do we believe this? Because our culture tells us that the most extraordinary people achieve before they're 30 years old, whether that's a tech genius that drops out of college, an 18-year-old pop musician, or a viral social media star. In a recent Guardian article, the author says that things like the Forbes 30 under 30 list sell us a vision of success that fetishizes youth. She continues, "Forbes 30 under 30 isn't just a list; it's a mentality: a pressure to achieve great things before youth slips away from you. 

These "before 30" lists push young people to try to succeed faster than ever, causing them to use their 30th birthdays as de facto finish lines for their race to create an extraordinary life. I've heard so many young people in their late 20s bemoan their impending 30th birthday. They think that since they haven't "made it" yet, they're a failure. Ordinary success isn't good enough, they feel like they need to be extraordinary to prove their value and worth. 

But now that the Forbes 30 under 30 list has been put out for 12 years, there’s been a disturbing trend. Many of the young people that Forbes spotlighted through their magazine have gone on to commit the most egregious white-collar crimes in our society. Forbes in their rush to anoint the next generation of "extraordinary" young people featured now-notorious figures like Adam Neumann from WeWork, Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos, and Sam Bankman-Fried from FTX, along with several less well-known young people who have been arrested and are facing significant prison sentences and fines.

These now disgraced young people made it their goal to achieve as much external success as possible as soon as possible. And while each initially accomplished some incredible things, none of them were internally read to handle that external success. They all crashed and burned, destroying billions of dollars in wealth, as well as their own and other people's lives. They didn't have the character, integrity, and wisdom needed to support their success, and succumbed to various temptations towards immoral shortcuts, abuse, and fraud. 

What's the lesson here? One of the most destructive desires in life is to try to become extraordinary before you're ready for it. Young people will do whatever it takes to be labeled as extraordinary by others, unwilling to admit that their inner character isn't up to the level of their external giftings. 

This is one reason why so many actors, musicians, and athletes struggle. They become successful at a young age before they developed the character and integrity to handle the responsibility of the fame and money that they’ve received. The result of their "extraordinary" beginning in life is often a catastrophic implosion, as they're unable to bear the responsibility of their newfound fame and money and become a healthy adult. 

What's the antidote to this pressure to become extraordinary before you can handle it? Patience. That is the key to living out this tension between our ordinariness and our desire for more. You have to be patient and wait for your life to develop so that you're ready for increased responsibilities when they arrive. Many young people dream of being extraordinary, but few spend their days developing the integrity and character that they’ll need to not self-destruct once they achieve any level of success.

And so we need to develop patience with what God is doing in our lives. Because we can't see him working right away, we assume that he's not working at all. We forget that God is working on a different schedule their our own. As Peter says, "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

Why do we need to be patient? Because God is giving us time to work through the major issues of our lives. We all have ticking time bombs in our lives, Shakespearean fatal flaws that exist deep in our lives. If you don't address these things when you're ordinary, you'll believe the praise of others and stop fighting against your lack of internal character and integrity. Eventually, though, these out-of-sight issues will cause your life to explode. 

While we hate God’s slowness, he does it not to make us feel like a failure but because he loves us. So many young people achieve before they are ready and end up self-destructing, both inside and outside of the church. People exalt them because of their giftedness, but they never ask them the tough questions about their inner life and actions until after they've destroyed their organization, church, or family. 

If you are feeling ordinary in your life, trust that God is using this time to develop your character and hone your issues, preparing you to be ready for future opportunities and assignments. Jesus makes it clear in Luke 16 that this is how God works. He says, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

God is always watching to see who is faithful with the little things in their lives. When he sees people who are honest, faithful, humble, and reliant on him, he gives them more responsibility in his kingdom. This seems like torture when we're 25 or 35, but God uses it to protect us from ourselves. He gives you time to develop the integrity and character that you'll need in positions of leadership and influence in the obscurity of life, using this time to refine you and remove the impurities from your heart.

We see an example of both sides of this in Old Testament Israel. Saul became king at a young age and was a guy who looked the part of a king. He was tall, handsome, and was somebody people would follow. But while he looked like a king on the outside, his heart wasn't ready for the pressures of the position. And so he struggled with jealousy of others, an uncontrollable temper, and using God transactionally, things that caused his reign to fall apart and led to his premature death. 

David, Saul's successor, had an opposite path to the throne. David spent months alone as an ordinary shepherd, caring for his father's sheep and developing both the external and internal character that he would one day need to be a successful leader. Even after he was anointed to be king, he had to wait over a decade to assume his throne, giving him time to grow and develop. While David's kingship wasn't without mistakes, his reign was marked by a heart that pursued God, and he was chosen to be a key figure in Jesus' lineage. 

Moses is another person who waited in obscurity for decades, developing the character he needed for God's future calling for his life. After growing up as a prince in Pharaoh’s household, he no doubt would have been on Egypt's 30 under 30 lists. This all changed when he killed an Egyptian for mistreating an Israelite, causing him to flee to the wilderness. God allowed Moses to spend 40 years in the wilderness tending sheep, as he developed the humility, meekness, and inner strength needed to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt at the age of 80.

While we shouldn’t think that if we put in our years being ordinary that God has to bless us with an extraordinary impact, we need to recognize that patience is required to be ready to reach your full potential. 

A more recent example of this is the ministry of Tim Keller. He spent the first nine years of his pastoral career preaching at a blue-collar church in rural Virginia and didn't publish most of his books or become well-known until he was in his late fifties. So many young pastors want to people the "next Tim Keller" by 30, not realizing that he was a very ordinary pastor at an ordinary church. 

When we recognize that God calls us to be faithful in the ordinary, we can relish our time spent in the little things, knowing that God is using these tasks to prepare us for greater things. God graciously withholds opportunities and blessings from us until we're more prepared for them. God shows his love for us, in that he doesn't give us responsibility and pressure that we aren't ready to handle yet. 

So rather than trying to become some young phenom, I try to remind myself that my goal is faithful service and steady growth in the places that God has called me right now, no matter how ordinary they feel. So many young people try to peak by thirty, and in doing so, either achieve too quickly and wreck their lives, or don’t achieve on their timetable, causing them to grow so discouraged they lose all hope for their lives.

If you think about your life like an art craft project, our 20s and 30s are the time when we’re letting the glue dry. While the project might look ready, if you try to move forward to the next steps before the glue dries, it'll fall apart. Be patient as your life sets up, and trust that God is blessing you by not giving you early success, giving you the time you need to establish the deep foundation you’ll need to stand strong during times of greater responsibility later in life.

Here are a few ways that you can work to build the kind of foundation that God will build off of to do great things:

• Develop your skills, rather than coast on your talent: As Solomon says in Proverbs 23: “Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.”

• Work on your flaws, rather than rest on your strengths: As James says in James 4: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”

• Seek to serve others, rather than work to accumulate power: As Jesus said in Matthew 20, “But whoever would be great among you must be your servant.”

When I was growing up, my family had this songbook of classic songs that my brothers and I would sing together. One of the songs was called When I Was a Lad, from a Gilbert and Sullivan musical in the 1880s. The song was about how an office boy's hard work when he was young set him up for future success. They go: 

When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an attorney's firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.

What was the result of his hard work?

I polished up that handle so carefully
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navy!

While this song isn't based on real life, it represents a real principle: how we do the work in our lives that seems small and insignificant will impact our future roles and responsibilities. We each have metaphorical windows to clean, floors to sweep, and door handles to polish. Your job is to be faithful in the work God has given to you, even if it seems insignificant, and trust that He will give you new opportunities and greater responsibilities when it’s appropriate.

While the character in this British musical worked hard out of his ambition, we aren’t trying to be the ruler of the Queen’s navy. Instead, we are called to an even higher task: to use our lives in service to the King of Kings.

While we can ask God to help us pursue our God-given hopes and dreams, we know that ultimately, the Christian life is about surrendering our lives to His will and serving others, rather than following our cultural ideals and pushing our will for success onto others.

When we are good stewards of the tools, gifts, and opportunities that God gives to us, He will ensure that we gain more responsibility. God will say to us the same thing that the master tells the good servants in the parable of the talents: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.”

That means a life will look different than one that is aimed at some 30 under 30 list. Instead, we will be more concerned with what’s going on in our hearts, rather than in outward recognition. As Dallas Willard wrote, “God is more interested in the person you are becoming than in your work, or your ministry, or your job.”

As we learn to be faithful in the little things, we can trust that God will give us more and more responsibility. God is patient, working in us over years and decades to prepare us for a lifetime of work in His kingdom. No matter where you end up, you can trust that your life is going according to plan. Maybe not your plan for personal achievement, but according to God’s plan for His glory and your good.

an example of the ordinary turned extraordinary

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After writing last week about the tension between an ordinary and extraordinary life, I wanted to explore an example of this from the Bible.

It can be hard to believe that God is working in the ordinariness of our lives to do extraordinary things. I don’t know about you, but my life feels overwhelmingly ordinary. So ordinary that it’s beyond God’s interest or desire to work in.

Sometimes I wonder what am I doing with my life. I want to give up on God’s call for my life to do something flashier and more attention-worthy. But there’s a Bible story that I remind myself of every time I grow discouraged with how ordinary my life and contribution to society feels. That’s the account of Jesus and the miracle of the little boy’s lunch.

In John 6, we read that Jesus had attracted a huge crowd of people to himself through the healing of the sick and the lame. As this group of 5,000 men, as well as women and children, followed Jesus and his disciples up a mountain, Jesus asked Phillip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”

Phillip was dumbfounded at what seemed like a ridiculous question. “Don’t you know,” Phillip responded to Jesus, “That 200 days of work wouldn’t make enough money to buy enough food to give this many people even a taste, much less be filled?!” You can feel Phillip’s shock; he can’t understand why Jesus would even entertain such a far-fetched idea. He makes it clear to Jesus that he thinks this is a logistically impossible task. There’s no way they could afford to buy enough food to feed all of these people.

Andrew, another disciple, was slightly more resourceful and seems to have gone out to see what was available in the crowd. Coming back, he reported to Jesus that he’d found a boy with a working-class lunch of five barley loaves and two fish. “But what are they?” he added, highlighting the impossibility of Jesus’ request to feed this giant crowd. The disciples were stuck, they had neither the money nor the food to complete Jesus’ absurd request.

The rest of course is history. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish and told the disciples to have the people sit down. He then gave thanks for the food, and after his prayer, the disciples started to distribute the bread and fish. Miraculously, the food fed 5,000 men plus women and children until they were all stuffed, even leaving 12 baskets of food left over.

So what does this miracle have to do with the tension between living an ordinary and extraordinary life? This miracle shines a light on how God partners with our ordinary lives to build His extraordinary kingdom.

When we read about this miracle, the emphasis of the story is always on Jesus, and rightfully so, He’s the main character both in this story and the entire Bible. The problem, though, when we read stories like this, is that we often subconsciously believe that our job is to be the Jesus figure in our own lives, the one who makes the miracle happens. We want to use our lives to make big things happen and create an impact for God.

But we all know if that were to happen, it wouldn’t be God who got the glory, but us. As Dallas Willard pointed out, “Much of our effort to do things for the Lord is really the resurgence of our desire to dominate and make things happen in our own strength.”

Instead, our role in God’s kingdom is to be like the unnamed boy. This boy had followed the crowd out to see Jesus, planning ahead and packing a lunch. Now, he was standing in the crowd as the disciples combed this motley crew of poor, sick, and crippled people trying to find enough food to help feed the crowd.

John doesn’t say how it happened, but when the boy heard the disciples’ request for food he gave his lunch to Andrew. And in a stunning turn of events, this boy’s lunch became the seed of Jesus’ incredible miracle, as he multiplied five bread and two fish until the entire crowd couldn’t eat another bite.

While we usually brush over this boy’s contribution, I think his actions are noteworthy. Let’s be honest, if I were that boy, I would have thought, “How could my lunch do anything to help? How could this food make a dent in the need? I’ll just keep it hidden right here in my cloak and make sure I’m taken care of.”

So what can we learn from this boy? He did three things that stand out:

• He surrendered his stuff: This boy willingly gave up his lunch to Jesus’ disciples when they asked for food. He willingly gave the food to the disciples, with no idea or control over what they were going to do with it. He didn’t dismiss his lunch as insignificant but contributed it to the cause.

• He sacrificed his security: By surrendering his lunch, he went from having a nice lunch to what seemed like a high likelihood of having no lunch at all, with nothing to show for it. He probably could’ve sold his lunch for a nice return, but yet he gave away his food, even though he had no way of getting any more. Even though he had planned ahead, he had to risk going hungry like everyone else.

• He trusted Jesus’ plan: This boy gave his lunch to Jesus’ disciples, not aware of what was going to happen. He did trust this teacher, though, and that this teacher that he’d been following around was worth trusting. Jesus’ disciples saw no way to feed the crowd and didn’t have much faith in Jesus, but the boy offered his food to Jesus in faith, trusting that it would help somehow.

What’s my point with all of this? It’s that through this boy’s faithful obedience to Jesus, his ordinary contribution to God’s kingdom was transformed by Jesus’ power into an extraordinary outcome. This boy’s unremarkable act was used by Jesus to perform an unforgettable miracle, creating such an incredible event that we’re still talking about it 2,000 years later.

It stands to reason that if God doesn’t change, He’s still working in similar ways today. And so Jesus’ interaction with His disciples plays itself out even in our lives:

• First, in the same way that Jesus challenged the disciples to feed the crowds, God gives us kingdom goals and dreams to challenge our faith in Him.

• Second, in the same way that the disciples responded, we approach the problem from either human terms and give up, or think we need to play God and make a miracle happen ourselves.

• Third, God calls us to offer up our five loaves and two fish, as He uses our ordinary contributions to work an incredible miracle in a way that is far beyond what we could ever imagine.

Too often, though, I’m like the disciples and get stuck on how I can solve the challenge myself. I approach God’s kingdom through a lens of rational thinking (we don’t have enough money, time, talent, energy, etc.) and don’t see how God could use the ordinary things of life to make even a dent in the problems and challenges around me. I lack the childlike faith of this boy, who didn’t know what was going to happen but was open to Jesus’ working in ways that even the disciples weren’t.

As I progress through my life, I’ve tried to use this boy’s lunch to remind myself that my job isn’t to use my gifts to make a miracle happen, but to contribute them to what God’s doing. God doesn’t want me to despise my personal “five loaves and two fishes” for being too insignificant, but calls me to offer it up to His kingdom, trusting that He will do more with it than I could ever imagine.

So the next time you’re tempted to despair at the ordinariness of your life and its apparent lack of impact, I hope you’ll remember the faithful obedience of this boy. God has given you something, even if it seems as insignificant as a little lunch to a hungry crowd, to offer up in service to His kingdom.

We all have different loaves and fishes, whether that’s writing, teaching, leading, parenting, loving, or caring for others, but the point remains. Our role in God’s kingdom is not to provide the power to make things happen but to offer up our little lives and let Jesus work through them. When we partner with what God’s doing, He promises to do extraordinary things in the midst of what feels mundane.

When this happens, God gets the glory and we’ll recognize that through the power of the Holy Spirit, all things are possible, even ones that seem beyond belief. This is what Paul wants us to see through his prayer in Ephesians 3:

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.”

When we offer up our ordinary gifts and trust God to work, He promises to weave all of the strands of our little lives into one great kingdom tapestry. We’re each just one thread, but together with the billions of other Christians that have lived and will live, God is using our ordinary lives to accomplish His extraordinary purposes.

rethinking the tension between an ordinary and extraordinary life

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“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” — Napoleon Hill

As you’ve gone through life, you’ve no doubt felt some level of pressure to be extraordinary. Growing up, we dream of being extraordinary, believing that it’s the pathway to honor, status, and standing out from the anonymity of the crowd.

And so we all, at some point and to some degree, hope to live an extraordinary life. This desire propels us to pursue a life of achievement, whether that’s getting a 4.0 school, finding an impressive job out of college, or making a name for ourselves in other important ways. As a culture, we obsess over individual honors and accolades, believing that these are the pathway toward an extraordinary life.

In this kind of mindset, ordinary becomes a synonym for failure. An ordinary life is seen as dull, monotonous, and unimpressive, something to be avoided at all costs. Everyone’s afraid of being ordinary, so we strive to achieve. On top of this, people who want to live an extraordinary life love to lecture everyone else on the need to do something “big” with their lives.

When I was younger, I felt this pressure to be extraordinary. Christians need to do big things, I thought, so I moved to Washington DC after college, eventually spending time in Uganda and South Sudan, before ending up in New York City. I wanted to do something extraordinary, to make my mark on the world for God.

Through living in these different places, I’ve had lots of experiences that many people consider extraordinary. But while dodging poisonous snakes in Africa or sleeping in my van in New York City sounds extraordinary to others, they’ve helped me realize that there’s no such thing as an extraordinary life. If you try to live an extraordinary life, you’ll never find it.

Why is that? Because I’ve learned that everyone’s life, no matter where you live or what you achieve, quickly becomes ordinary. Someone’s life might seem extraordinary from the outside, but when you’re the one living it, everything becomes ordinary after about two months.

All of us, no matter where you live or what you achieve, experience life as ordinary. You have to get groceries, eat food, clean your room, reply to emails, and run errands. While experiences like going to college, getting your first real job, getting married, buying a house, or becoming a parent seem extraordinary at first, the high quickly wears off from all of these things.

I suppose that even the actors and athletes who accomplish the most noteworthy things would all tell you, off camera at least, that their lives feel quite ordinary. George Clooney hasn’t been returning my texts lately, but I imagine if you asked him or any other celebrity, they would tell you that their life is very ordinary. While seeing your face at the movie theater or getting hounded for autographs everywhere would feel wild to us, to them, it’s just another day.

The fact that everyone’s life, even the ones that appear most extraordinary, becomes ordinary is a good thing, though. Imagine if our minds and bodies could never adjust to new surroundings or strange stimuli. It’s God’s blessing to us that we grow more and more comfortable in the familiar patterns and routines of life.

So why have I spent the time to point this out? Because I see many people so set on living an extraordinary life that they won’t ever embrace the ordinariness of life. They are always striving to be extraordinary, which causes them to end up in one of two empty and destructive paths:

1. They experience a constant restlessness for more: Even though everything that they’ve achieved has become ordinary, they still think that the next level of success with bring the endorphin rush of achievement that they’re looking for. These people are then forced to continually chase after what feels extraordinary, by traveling all over the world, eating out at nicer and nicer restaurants, and constantly upgrading their homes and possessions, hoping that leveling up every few years will give them the buzz of feeling more successful than their peers. But everything they do ends up feeling ordinary, which causes them to struggle with overworking, debt, gaining weight, and superficial relationships. The result is an empty and exhausting life spent chasing things that are ultimately superficial.

2. They grow angry and bitter: Lots of people who want to be extraordinary never get close, which causes them to grow angry, bitter, and disillusioned, whether that’s at their parents, hometown, culture, or God. They were going to become somebody special, yet their lives haven’t worked out that way, and so they find someone to blame for why they haven’t become extraordinary. Lots of people from the first group end up here since eventually, everyone has peers that surpass their achievements.

At this point, you might think that the solution to this obsession with living an extraordinary life is to admit your ordinariness and get on with life. There are many people out there, especially Christians, who encourage you to accept that you’re ordinary and quit trying to dream big with your life.

This group of people doesn’t struggle with the fact that all of life becomes ordinary. Instead, they glory in it, gladly embracing the routine of their day-to-day lives. They go to work, buy groceries, raise kids, scroll their phones, and go to church, content with how ordinary it all is. They comfort themselves with 1 Thessalonians 4, where Paul says, “Strive to live quietly, to attend to your own affairs, and to work with your hands.”

This group often scoffs at people who want to achieve more, seeing them as immature and foolish. They want to do the same thing year after year and do everything they can to insulate their lives from any changes, surprises, or uncertainties. Their goal isn’t to experience extraordinary things, but rather to create financial security for the future through maximizing their 401k, Roth IRA, and college savings plan.

While this second group doesn’t fall into the destructiveness of seeking an extraordinary life, they have their own problems. They don’t struggle with trying to achieve too much, but rather with leaving their comfort zone. On the whole, they don’t have big goals for growth or change but are content with the status quo.

When this group does this, though, they downplay their gifts (“Who am I to work on this big problem?”) and develop an over-reliance on the sovereignty of God (“If God wanted that thing done, He’d make it all happen Himself”). It’s so easy for this group to fall into a fatalistic “It is what it is” attitude.

They acquiesce to what’s average, as they forfeit their agency in life and avoid stepping outside of what’s comfortable. They settle into life and accept whatever happens in their country, culture, or cul-de-sac, just trying to make it through the next wave of cultural changes.

All of us naturally fall into one of these two groups, with its accompanying flaws. On top of their own shortcomings, each group lives in tension with the other one, complaining about the other side’s flaws. People who have pursued ordinary lives feel like the other side looks down on them, while people who have pursued the extraordinary feel like the other side resents them. This causes both groups to feel slighted and unappreciated by the other one.

So what is the solution to this tension between pursuing an extraordinary or ordinary life? The only way to reconcile these two ways of living is to recognize a secret of God’s kingdom: the ordinary life is where God calls people to do extraordinary things.

That’s the message that God tells us over and over in the Bible: your ordinary life is the place for God’s extraordinary work. God does His most extraordinary work, not through the rich and the powerful, but through ordinary people who have surrendered their lives to God’s kingdom. Whether that’s Moses, Rahab, Gideon, David, Esther, Daniel, Isaiah, or Peter, God is always working through ordinary people to do incredible things. The Bible makes this clear in Deuteronomy 7 when it explains why God chose the nation of Israel:

The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery.

I hope you are starting to see how this fits together. By admitting our ordinariness we aren’t disqualifying ourselves from doing important work, but rather setting ourselves up to become aqueducts for God’s grace to a world thirsting for His extraordinary love. As Dallas Willard put it, “The obviously well-kept secret of the ‘ordinary’ is that it is made to be a receptacle of the divine, a place where the life of God flows.”

So how does God transform our ordinary lives into opportunities for His extraordinary work? It happens through:

• Kingdom-centered obedience: Jesus says that as we are regenerated and pursue God’s kingdom, we’ll become salt and light to a struggling world. Our obedience will shine before a watching world, turning heads and preserving our culture.

• Other-centered service: when you start to love and serve the people around you, you will start to have little explosions of God-charged moments. As Jesus says, if you want to be great, you must become a servant. Service, not selfish ambition, achievement, or upward mobility is what makes for an extraordinary life.

• Scandalous friendships: Jesus shows us that others-centered service in God’s kingdom always leads to scandalous friendships, where you befriend people across racial, class, and conventional boundaries. No doubt your friend circle has people in your community that it considers weird, strange, undesirable, and “unclean.” These are the people God wants us to love.

We are called to do these things, not to make God love us, but rather because they’re what Jesus did to reconcile us to God. We are to pursue these three things, not to merit God’s love but rather in response to God’s love. When we do this, a surprising thing will happen: God will show up! I don’t know how, but I know that He will.

So I encourage you to ask God to give you some Kingdom imagination, and then say yes when something inconvenient, scary, and uncomfortable pricks your conscience. Take some time to ask God this summer: “What are the ways that you’re working right now in my neighborhood? How might you want to work? How could my gifts and calling fit into that?”

We should be careful not to quench the Holy Spirit, responding to God’s nudge with Moses’ response, “You’ve got the wrong guy, God!” As Bob Goff said, “I used to think you had to be special for God to use you, but now I know you simply need to say yes.”

Do you believe that God wants to do extraordinary things in the context of your ordinary life? Do you believe that God is working in your neighborhood? We’re living in a culture that’s in decline. We have more money on average, yet we’re struggling with truth and goodness and love and community. Your neighbors, your coworkers, your school system, your local politics, and your communities are yearning for God’s kingdom. They don’t know it, but that’s what they need.

Of course, you can’t do everything, but you can do something. I challenge you to ask God, “God, show me where I can use my life to serve your kingdom in all of the ordinary ways around. Show me enemies that I can love, haters to walk the extra mile with, and Samaritans to serve.” An extraordinary life comes not through climbing the ladder of success and achievement, but through following Jesus in dying to self and pouring out your life for others.

We need to remember what Jesus told His disciples when they were doubting whether God would work, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” This is why William Carey, the first missionary to China, could encourage Christians everywhere, to: “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”

I came across this poem by William Martin called, “Do Not Ask Your Children to Strive” which gets at this tension between the ordinary and extraordinary.

Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples, and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.

As you dig into the ordinariness of your life, you have the opportunity to serve God in important ways, whether you’re called to live in a giant city or a tiny town. Your life may be unnoticed, but if you surrender it to God’s kingdom, it will never be ordinary. As Tim Challies wrote: “We please God—we thrill God—when we live as ordinary people in ordinary lives who use our ordinary circumstances to proclaim and live out an extraordinary gospel.”

I wasn’t planning on writing this much on this topic, but I hope that something here has pricked your heart. I hope you will give up your small ambitions, either for excitement or security, and join the simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary work of God’s kingdom. Like fireworks on a dark night, God's grace will break through our ordinary lives to display His glory and goodness.

where is your thanksgiving going?

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I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. — Psalm 69:30

Thanksgiving is a holiday that everybody in the U.S. can celebrate. No matter your background or religious beliefs, everybody acknowledges that it’s good to be thankful. And so many people give at least some thought to gratitude each Thanksgiving, even if it’s just going around the table and expressing thanks for one thing.

But our culture has a problem with thankfulness; it never gets directed toward anything. We are thankful for many things but have no one to be thankful to. For many, thanksgiving is abstract gratitude indirectly expressed to no one in particular. We list off the things we’re thankful for, but they are like a helium-filled balloon that gets loose, drifting off to nowhere in particular.

This type of thanksgiving masks what’s actually going on in our hearts. While externally we might be thankful, internally we are caught up in either a spirit of self-congratulation or a sense of getting lucky. While outwardly we express thanksgiving, deep down, we’re really congratulating ourselves; we’re the ones who put in the hard work to get the job, make the money, pay the rent, and keep everything going in our lives.

But giving thanks for the blessings of our lives shouldn’t be an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back or to thank our lucky stars. First and foremost, thankfulness is about giving thanks to God. Why? Because all of the things that we’re thankful for are ultimately from Him. As the Bible says in James 1: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.”

When we don’t give thanks specifically to God for all of the gifts He has given to us, we commit, as one pastor puts it, “cosmic plagiarism.” When we commit cosmic plagiarism, we use God’s blessings but refuse to give Him the glory for what He’s done. We steal the glory that God deserves and try to take it for ourselves.

Instead of expressing thankfulness for things indirectly, we should be like the psalmist in Psalm 100, who expressed his gratitude directly to God. He wrote:

Know that the Lord, He is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

True thanksgiving is ultimately directed toward God, the source of every good thing in life. This means that you should be thankful to God for the opportunity to:

• Have a job and make a living.

• Experience good health and another year of life.

• Develop your gifts and make progress towards your goals.

• Live in a time of relative peace and stability.

• Enjoy a variety and abundance of food.

It’s easy to take the many good things in our life for granted in our culture, but they aren’t here solely because of human ingenuity or random chance. Rather, they are a result of God’s blessing on us, our families, and our communities.

But what are we supposed to do if we don’t feel particularly thankful? Some of you have no doubt had difficult years. It’s important to note that the psalmist doesn’t thank God for easy circumstances or prosperous conditions but rather for His steadfast love. Steadfast love is the English translation for hesed, the Hebrew word for God’s covenantal love. The psalmist grounds his thanksgiving towards God on His unchanging redemptive love found in God’s promise to redeem His people.

The foundation of thanksgiving isn’t that we’ve had more good things than bad happen over the last year, but rather that God, despite the ups and downs of your life, continues to love you with an enduring love, working through everything that happens so that you might experience His faithfulness. We can still be thankful, even in times of trial and difficulty, because God’s covenant promise to, through Jesus Christ, never leave or forsake us.

So this Thanksgiving, as you have the opportunity to give thanks for many things, give God the glory that He deserves for all of the blessings that He has given to you.

getting your relationship right with exercise

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Our culture has a strange relationship with exercise. What used to be a quirky hobby back in the 1960s and 70s is now seen by many as an everyday necessity. Whether it’s because of a more sedentary lifestyle, grocery stores filled with processed food, or just being able to afford more high-calorie food, one thing is true, many people make exercise a top priority in their lives.

And in many ways, that’s a good thing! Like we saw last week, we are called by God to steward the gift of our bodies and to use them to honor what He’s created. There’s a great temptation, though, to use exercise not to honor God but rather ourselves.

This is especially true in the achievement class, the group of young(ish) people who spend their twenties and thirties pursuing an aspirational lifestyle. This group, which has taken over most major and regional cities, doesn’t use exercise to honor God but instead sees it as the way to ensure you look your best and obtain a successful life.

In a Vogue article entitled, Are We Too Obsessed with Fitness?, the author argues that “we live in a society that is increasingly fixated on fitness.” She says that we’ll squeeze in an online yoga class or late-night workout, all to handle the “mounting pressure to not only stay fit but sculpt a toned, fit-looking body.” While lots of people in the United States ignore exercise completely, for many young people, outside of work, exercise is the most important thing in their lives.

Why is exercise so important for our generation? Because we live in an appearance and image-driven culture. Whether you like it or not, we all know that we are constantly judged based on how we look, which factors into which work, social, and dating opportunities open up for us.

And so many obsess over exercise, pursuing it with a religious fervor. In New York City, Sunday mornings aren’t reserved for church, but rather for exercise classes. Exercise lulls high-achievers in with the promise of self-improvement and a sense of control over how others perceive you. Because of this, exercise has shifted from something important to something ultimate.

In this culture of exercise, your body then becomes the social proof of your success, since a thin, fit body shows that you are healthy, well-off, and going places, since you have the time, money, and self-discipline to eat the healthiest food, buy the best exercising apparel, and work out at the nicest gyms and classes.

This all shows the broken relationship our culture has with exercise. We don’t view our bodies as a gift to steward but rather as a treasure to build up and use to create social wealth, whether in real life or on social media. Our bodies and appearance become our treasure, the thing that we value above almost everything else, and exercise isn’t just exercise, but rather how we get more and more.

Consider this example from Naomi Watt’s book The Beauty Myth. As the author talked to woman after woman about their lives, she found that the number one life goal for the overwhelming majority of the women was to lose ten pounds. A slimmer body was their treasure, and no doubt the pursuit of it drove many of their decisions in life. And while the author didn’t talk to men, this life goal isn’t unique to women. We’re all tempted to think, “If I could just lose ten pounds, then my life would be so much better.”

So what’s the problem with treating your body and your appearance as your treasure? Jesus explained why it doesn’t work in the Sermon on the Mount. He said:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Jesus wants us to realize the foolishness of turning any earthly thing into our treasure, even if it is a good thing like a healthy and fit body. Why is this such a bad idea? Because when you make an earthly thing your treasure, it will be subject to the decaying forces of this broken world, causing it to eventually break down.

Young people believe that if they attack the aging process with an unnatural ferocity, then they’ll be able to ensure that they never get old, or at least always look young for their age.

But no matter how much you exercise, everybody’s body is growing older and falling apart. You might be able to use exercise and healthy eating to forestall this physical slide, but eventually, time will catch up to you. It’s always shocking when you realize that your grandparents were once your age.

The point of Jesus’ message isn’t to convince you that exercise or earthly things are bad, but rather to show you that unless your treasure is eternal, you’re setting yourself up for major disappointment. Jesus wants you to spend your life storing up treasure in heaven, something that will last for all of eternity.

So how do you course correct your relationship with exercise? You have to treasure your spiritual fitness over your physical fitness. The Apostle Paul shows us how these two interact in 1 Timothy 4. He says:

“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

Paul isn’t anti-exercise. He recognizes that physical training is important. But, he challenges us to recognize that physical training is not anywhere near as valuable as spiritual training. Godliness, or being spiritually healthy, is what Paul wants us to set our hearts on because it will bring a reward both in this life and in the life to come.

So where are you, do you value spiritual exercise more than physical exercise? If I’m honest, it’s much easier to exercise at the gym for an hour than to spend an hour alone with God. We prioritize our physical health because it’s obvious when we’re physically lazy and out of shape. We get embarrassed when our clothes don’t fit right or when a past picture shows a slimmer self.

But too often we ignore our spiritual health since there are no physical ways to see when you’re spiritually out of shape. This disinterest in spiritual exercise creates a false front; on the outside we look good, but on the inside we are spiritually sluggish, weak, and overweight.

While everyone talks about the Covid Fifteen, the weight everyone seemed to gain while we were sitting around waiting for the pandemic to end, few people talk about how the pandemic affected our spiritual health. A wide swath of young people stopped going to church for two years, and while everything has reopened, in my anecdotal experience, many young people have gone back to the gym but not to church.

And so my question for both myself and you: what is your greatest treasure: your physical appearance or your relationship with God? As Jesus says, the thing that your heart gravitates towards shows you what you’re actually treasuring. Unfortunately, our hearts too often display that we value our physical health more than our spiritual health.

Too often, I’ve noticed how my heart is unconcerned with my spiritual sin, but when I eat too much fast food or junk food my heart and conscience are troubled; I feel more distraught when I eat 1400 calories at Taco Bell than when I break one of God’s 10 Commandments. This guilt exposes that in reality, my heart is treasuring my bodily appearance more than a relationship with God.

What’s the point of all of this? I want to encourage you, and myself, to make spiritual exercise more of a priority than physical exercise. A healthy body is a great thing to use to serve God, but a terrible treasure to try to hold onto as you get older. Physical exercise is good, but spiritual exercise stores up an eternal treasure that will never go away.

So how can we make spiritual exercise more important in our lives than physical exercise? You have to understand what the gospel promises about your body. The typical approach to exercise is to use it in hopes of getting a (more) perfect body. But when you let the gospel flood your heart, you see that because of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, God is going to give you the perfect body that you yearn for.

Paul describes this in 1 Corinthians 15:

“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;

Paul shows us that the only real answer for the brokenness of our bodies is the resurrection of the dead. Because Jesus was bodily resurrected from the dead, God promises to do the same with our bodies. While exercise may keep our perishable bodies from falling apart as quickly, the only lasting answer is Jesus’ second coming, when we will receive the imperishable and glorified bodies that we yearn for.

The gospel is not against the body but rather tells us that our exercising is just a feeble attempt to do what Jesus has done for us through His bodily resurrection: to give us a completely healthy body that will last forever.

When you realize that it’s only in heaven that your body will become everything that you want it to be, it will heal your relationship with exercise in this life. You can use exercise to steward God’s gift of a body to you, but you don’t have to use exercise to create the “perfect” body or to try to live forever.

This is hard, since this life feels so real and heaven seems so far away. But Paul encourages you to set your vision not on the temporary, but rather on the eternal:

“Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

I encourage you to use your life not to become the best-looking person that you can be, but rather to store up a spiritual treasure of incredible worth in heaven. It’s not easy to remember this, much less to live it out, but as you let the gospel renew your heart, it will allow you to treasure your eternal relationship with God more than your temporary appearance.

understanding how you approach exercise

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When I hit 30, I came to the dreaded realization that I needed to start exercising. The number on the scale had started to creep up, my shirts were fitting a little tighter, and absent some sort of change, I wasn’t headed on the right trajectory. I’m not much of a runner, so I got a basic membership at a lower-price gym in New York City and tried to go as often as I could.

In the five-ish years that I’ve been exercising in New York City, I’ve become interested in the role exercise plays in the life of a modern young adult. Exercise is a big deal for young people, and every year they spend thousands of dollars at places like CrossFit, SoulCycle, Equinox, and Peloton. While many in our culture are uninterested in exercise, exercise-obsessed young people arrive at their workout of choice wearing high-end athleisure, follow intense workouts, and then afterward proclaim that it’s the best part of their day.

For most, exercise is considered an unquestioned good. But while exercise is often a good thing, too many people in our culture pursue physical health because they’re spiritually unhealthy. To understand why the obsessive interest in exercise flows out of spiritual problems, we need to examine the two main approaches that people take toward exercise in our culture. They are:

1. Exercise for self-optimization

2. Exercise for self-adoration.

These two approaches dominate our exercise culture yet flow out of a heart that’s not in a healthy place.

first approach: exercise for self-optimization

People who take this first approach to exercise see working out as a way to optimize their lives. They view their body as a machine and exercise as a way to improve and optimize that machine’s performance. These people exercise because they believe that if their personal machine works better, they’ll get more done and be more successful.

One example of this approach was a high-end gym that I walked by in San Francisco. The gym had a large poster in the window featuring two ripped people standing next to the tagline: “Turn your body into a machine!” For young people, especially in work-driven places like San Francisco and NYC, exercise is seen as the way to tune up your personal machine and ensure that you are as productive as possible.

When you see exercise as a way to optimize your body, then science becomes your avenue to better performance. These people choose what to eat through the lens of nutritional science. They follow the popular food fads, hoping that the right combination of food, vitamins, and supplements will help their bodies run as effectively as possible.

Because optimizers treat their bodies like a machine they see their food as fuel. Eating is not just eating, but rather refueling the body so that it can reach peak performance. This helps explain why there is such a huge health food movement among young people, whether they want to buy expensive green juices, organic salads, or supplements and vitamins. People hope that if they can give their bodies the best fuel possible, they’ll optimize their personal machines to be as efficient and effective as possible.

What’s the promise of the self-optimizing approach to exercise? We believe that if we can optimize our bodies, then we’ll be more productive. After all, if their body is a machine, then the desired outcome is increased output; we want to get more done, whether that’s at work, at home, or in our general activities.

Productivity is a core idol in our culture, and increased productivity is the promise that so many people on social media and podcasts taut as the goal of exercise: if you optimize your body through exercise, you’ll sleep better, be more focused at work, feel less stressed out, and have the energy to accomplish more in every area of life. Exercise then becomes a means to help us work longer, be happier, and get more things done.

Even if you don’t go crazy with diets, supplements, or specialized workouts, this approach is incredibly seductive, especially for men. Since we are evaluated on what we can produce, we think that if we can optimize our physical bodies so that we can work longer hours and get more things done, then this will lead to a life filled with more self-worth, happiness, and success.

The deeper promise of self-optimizing exercise is deeper than just productivity, but also the hope of eternal life. If you eat healthily and become an obsessive exerciser, then you can make sure that your personal machine will never break. The “exercise as self-optimization approach promises its members that if they will follow it, then they’ll be rich, healthy, and happy, and will never have to worry about death." As an Equinox gym commercial encourages us, exercise helps us “live better, love better, strive harder…to be the next big thing.”

To recap, when you view exercise as a way to self-optimize, you will:

• See your body as a machine.

• Often refer to food and eating as fuel and refueling.

• Be very careful about what you eat.

• Focus on how exercise makes you feel.

• See increased productivity as the immediate goal of exercise.

• See living forever as the unacknowledged ultimate goal of exercise.

the second approach: exercise as self-adoration

The second approach to exercise is quite different from the first. People don’t exercise in the second approach to optimize their bodies, but rather to turn their bodies into something that other people will adore. For them, the purpose of exercise is the adoration of the self.

In this second approach, people don’t see their bodies as a machine but rather as a work of art, an object for other people to observe and adore. Exercise becomes a tool by which you make your body pleasing to look at, something to be worshiped and adored. These people avoid heavy weights and pursue things like yoga, barre, pilates, and spin classes; types of exercise that promise to sculpt and tone your body. If you can’t make your body into a beautiful piece of art, then you’ll be able to obtain the adoration and sexual interest of your peers.

This approach can be seen in a poster I saw in a gym in Chelsea, a high-end neighborhood in New York City. The gym was located in a converted old stone church and featured a huge ad on the side of the former church. A shirtless man was pictured, next to the words: “Make them worship you!”

The self-adoration approach teaches you not to optimize your body for productivity, but rather prepare your body to be observed and evaluated. Exercise becomes the way that you work on every little muscle group so that you can tone and tighten your way to looking your absolute best.

These people are also incredibly careful about what they eat, not so much because unhealthy food will mess up their personal machine, but rather because the extra calories will cause you to gain weight in your hips, stomachs, thighs, and face. This approach sees an unexercised body as ugly and teaches that your body must fit the platonic ideal of your sex to be valuable.

The motive for these people is to be adored, and so they do everything they can to make their bodies a beautiful work of art that other people will be attracted to. Clothes become an important way to do this since all of your work won’t matter if people can’t see how great your body is. So these people pursue tighter and more revealing clothes and are always willing to take more layers off, letting everyone around them see how perfect their bodies are.

So what’s the goal of exercise as self-adoration? To get status. If you can create a body that other bodies will adore, whether in person or on social media, you can gain all kinds of social power. This social power will help you live your perfect life, whether that’s attracting another high-status person, growing your Instagram following, or just getting the social benefits we give to the most attractive people in society.

These people use their work-of-art body to gain acceptance, status, and most of all security. If they can make their body into a work of art they will be adored, making them feel wanted, desired, and worthy. The body isn’t a means to being productive, but rather gaining and holding social power.

Ultimately, the core desire is to use your body to gain so much social power that you’ll become a god in your circles, and gain the power to dictate your wishes to everyone around you. As you gain more adoration, you’ll get more social power, which will help you get more control in your friend group, dating life, social media, and in general society.

To recap, when you view exercise as a way to self-adoration, you will:

• Treat your body as a work of art.

• Emphasize exercises that sculpt your muscles and body into their most pleasant forms.

• Objectify your body for others so that they can adore you.

• Always be finding new ways to show your body to others.

• Find great delight in the social power that comes from being adored.

does this work?

Every gym in New York City, where I live, is filled with people who pursue exercise through one of these two approaches. They are dedicated in their focus and believe that exercise may be the difference between a mediocre life and a high-achieving one.

But while these two approaches are easiest to spot at their extremes, anyone who exercises struggles with one or both of these approaches. Exercise is hard, after all, and we use the tangible benefits that these approaches promise, either increased productivity or adoration, to motivate us to keep going. We steal glances at our reflection in the mirror, growing either excited or dismayed depending on whether our bodies measure up.

But despite how widespread these practices are, neither approach is healthy. Why is that? The first approach won’t work because no matter how much you optimize your body, you have limits as a human being. No matter how hard you try, you aren’t a machine. Your body will grow old, you will lose your ability to be productive, and will break down. As the Bible says in Isaiah 40: “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall.” No matter how hard you exercise or how clean your diet is, you cannot change this.

The second approach won’t work for a similar reason. No matter how hard you try to turn your body into a work of art, we are living in a world where everything breaks down and falls apart, even our bodies. The Bible warns us of this when it says in Proverbs 31 that “charm is deceptive and beauty fades.” No amount of exercise will be able to reverse again and allow you to maintain a body that will receive the adoration of your peers.

Behind both of these problems lies the same root problem: all of us are going to die. Exercise can improve your health and increase your attractiveness, but it can’t solve the fact that our bodies are all breaking down and will eventually die. Young people hope that by pursuing the perfect exercise routine they can cheat death, but nothing that you do can change the reality that faces each of us.

so what’s the solution?

So what can we do? Can we even exercise? Are we supposed to ignore exercise altogether and just let our bodies go? The solution is not to reject exercising but rather to allow the gospel to renew how we approach exercise. The Bible teaches us to approach exercise from the perspective, not of self-optimization or self-adoration, but rather exercise as self-stewardship.

You see, God gives us our bodies as a gift. He created us and gives us our bodies as a vessel for life. The proper response to any gift is to be a wise steward of it. Exercise is the way that we steward the gift of our physical bodies, as we respect God’s design for our bodies to need exercise and honor Him for this gift. The Apostle Peter explains in 1 Peter:

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

Peter makes it clear that we are to steward whatever gifts we graciously receive from God. Since the body is a gift from God (He knit yours together in your mother’s womb), we are to be good stewards of it. You are your body’s caretaker, and when you exercise you honor God’s created order and make the most of His gift to you. To either avoid exercise or to use it for your own honor is to misuse God’s gift to us.

But as Peter shows, stewardship isn’t just about taking care of the gifts that God has given you, but also using the gifts you have received to serve others. He says, “Use the gifts you have received to serve others.” Exercise becomes a way to ensure that your body is healthy and fit enough to serve and help others. Whether you are called to build houses, grow food, or even type on a computer all day, exercise is a God-given tool to make sure you possess the strength and ability to serve others.

Paul summarizes all of this well in 1 Corinthians 6:

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples 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 bodies.”

When I exercise, I try to keep this in the forefront of my mind. I am not doing this to become more productive or better looking, but rather to be a good steward of God’s gift and give Him honor through my body. Exercise also helps me to be healthy and strong so that I can serve my neighbor with this gift. If I don’t steward my body well, then I will damage the gift God gave me and dishonor His creation.

But how do we give up this desire to use exercise for self-optimization or self-adoration? The key is to understand how Jesus gave His body for you. When Jesus came to earth, He took on a body just like ours, with all the limits that we are subject to. But He didn’t use His body to bring honor or attention to himself but rather offered it up on the cross so that our bodies might be redeemed from death. As the writer to the Hebrews says;

“That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, ‘You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer.’”

Our culture tells us to sacrifice our bodies to serve our own interests, but the gospel shows us how Jesus sacrificed his body to serve the interests of others. So when you see how Jesus used the body He was given by God to ensure that we will have a perfected resurrected body, it melts our hearts and allows us to offer up our bodies in service to others.

Our bodies are an incredible gift from God and I hope that through exercise you are a wise steward of yours, so that you can follow in the way of Christ as you love and serve others. Then we can live out Paul’s command to us in Romans 12:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.”

the key reason skill development goes bad

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After spending the last two posts talking about the importance of acquiring skills, it would be easy to focus on strategies for gaining skills. But if you ever want to develop skills in a healthy way, you have to understand the unacknowledged problem that plagues our culture when it comes to skills. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, the problem is that we gain the right skills but for the wrong reasons.

What do I mean by this? Many people do the right thing in gaining skills but are motivated by the wrong reason: their personal advancement and success. They pursue skills not to serve others, but rather to help themselves.

I remember my dedication to practicing basketball in high school. I was fixated on becoming a more skilled basketball player, so I shot baskets every evening for hours, dreaming of the personal success that would come to me if I became better than my peers. These selfish motives strike each of us in different ways, causing us to develop skills, whether at school, work, or in life, out of a motivation to advance beyond our peers.

The Bible calls special attention to these motivations, naming it envy, that secret displeasure and ill-will we harbor towards people who have what we want in life. The preacher in Ecclesiastes saw this in his day, writing:

Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This is also vanity and a striving after the wind.

As the preacher looked at his culture, he saw people who worked hard to acquire the skills they needed to succeed. But rather than praising their work or their abilities, he calls our attention to their motives: they are driven to increase their skills because they are envious of their neighbors. They envy the success, wealth, and status of their peers, which motivates them to get the skills they need to surpass the people around them.

Could this same thing not be said about our society? Does not envy, or a desire to be envied, motivate so many people to develop the skills they need to advance in their careers or excel in their lives? We observe the lifestyles and success of our peers, whether in real life or on social media, and envy them, motivating us to double down on developing the skills we need to succeed.

The German sociologist Helmut Schoeck echoes Ecclesiastes in his 1966 classic book entitled Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour:

Envy is a drive which lies at the core of man’s life as a social being, and which occurs as soon as two individuals become capable of mutual comparison. Man is an envious being.

Schoeck believed that envy was a core drive for human behavior, as it motivates people in every culture to compare themselves to others and develop the skills they need to keep up. But despite Schoeck’s belief that envy is a widespread motivator in human behavior, he said that no one wanted to talk about it:

That our fellow man is always potentially envious is one of the most disturbing, often one of the most carefully concealed yet basic facts of human existence at all levels of cultural development.

While no one wants to admit to being envious, everyone struggles with gaining skills not because we want to serve others, but rather because we want what our peers have. Envy drives much of our societal push for skills development. For example:

• An athlete sees the praise and recognition of his peers and decides to increase his training so that he will be the fastest next season.

• A new mom sees how much attention another mom gets for having the perfect home and starts to spend more and more time online picking up tips to help her create a picturesque home.

• A young person sees their friend’s lifestyle and decides to get their MBA so that they can jump up into the next income bracket.

• A college student sees the attention a classmate gets for landing a prestigious job and begins to spend even more time focused on getting better grades.

• A pastor sees a peer’s church explode in attendance and begins to attend conferences so that his preaching will improve and more people will like his church.

In each of these examples, people are working towards helpful skills that will result in better performances, families, churches, and businesses. But the problem is that they are doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Their desire to improve their skills flows out of envy for their peer’s success, even though they’d never publicly admit that.

So how do you know if you are developing your skills for healthy motives or envious motives? It all comes down to glory. The person who is pursuing skills out of envious motives believes that their goal in life is to glorify themselves and enjoy their own life. If they could just become more skilled then they would get the personal glory to feel happy and important.

But the person who is pursuing skills out of healthy motives is motivated by the desire to, in the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, glorify God and enjoy Him forever. When you are motivated to build skills to glorify God and not yourself, you will be able to do the right thing for the right reason. When this happens, it creates a culture where people develop gifts to love God and serve others, not to bring glory to themselves:

• The painter paints not to be remembered with the great artists of all time, but rather to show the beauty and order that God has created.

• The accountant pursues excellence not to enrich his lifestyle, but rather out of a desire to honor God’s command for honest scales and a truth-based society.

• The doctor cares for patients not because it’s the job that pays her the most money, but rather because she wants to use her skills to help sick people become healthy.

• The parent stays up talking through an issue with their child not because they see it as an investment in their future success, but rather to show the unconditional love they’ve received from their Heavenly Father.

• The chef creates new recipes not to win more Michelin stars than her peers, but rather to display how different ingredients in God’s creation work together in incredible ways.

As these examples show, every skill can be pursued for good or bad reasons. You can develop your skills to serve your neighbors and glorify God or to serve and glorify yourself. This doesn’t mean that money or recognition or even fame are bad, but rather that they should be a byproduct of you trying to use your abilities to honor God, rather than the main motivator themselves.

But when you recognize that God cares not only about what you do but why you do it, you will be able to work towards skills that serve others and contribute to the greater good. A well-lived life doesn’t just involve developing the right skills, but rather developing the right skills for the right reasons.

skills are what turn you dreams into a reality

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After writing last week’s post on the importance of learning new skills, I’ve been thinking about how it hurts society when people refuse to develop new skills. Why is this such a problem? Because it doesn’t matter how strong your desires for change are if you never gain the skills that you need to help.

People today are filled with desires for a different reality. They want to end homelessness, racism, pollution, poverty, and war, not to mention a million smaller things. They think the best way to solve these problems is by expressing their desires as loudly as possible, whether on social media or during our political elections. The problem with this approach, though, is that desiring improvement does not create improvement. You need skills to translate those desires into tangible action and create positive change. Everyone focuses on proclaiming their desires for change without realizing a fundamental truth: desires without skills don’t change anything.

Let’s consider an example. Imagine that you have always dreamed of being the next great Hollywood movie director. Every day since middle school you’ve desired to direct the next Star Wars or Chariots of Fire. But does that desire make you a good director or create a great movie? Of course not. Your desires are only valuable if they motivate you to develop the screenwriting, cinematography, and project management skills to make a great movie. The desire to direct a great movie is worthless without the skills to excel at and perform the actual work. This is true in every area of life, whether you desire to work on a major social problem, increase your company’s profits, or be the best parent you can be.

Contrary to popular mythology, the world doesn’t run on hopes and dreams, but rather on skill. Hopes and dreams are essential, but only so far as they show you what problems you are being called to address and motivate you to master the skills you need to be effective. Reality doesn’t change through desire, but rather through building skills and using those abilities to solve problems. Many people think:

Desire + passion + enthusiasm = changed reality.

But that doesn’t work. It just creates a lot of people clamoring for someone else to do the hard work of changing reality. Instead, realize that every improvement in society, whether it’s in your local community or across the world, follows this path:

Desire + skill + hard work = changed reality.

The problem is that many people who desire change the most in society either assume their desires are enough and never do anything to solve the problem, choosing to put the burden for change on the government, some corporation, or another individual. Or, even more disastrously, they assume that since they have such strong desires they don’t need to worry about skills, which leads them to act in foolish and destructive ways, causing more problems than if they would have done nothing at all.

This is why people who are passionate about change, like missionaries, politicians, and young people, often cause so many problems, even though they want to help. They then grow disillusioned when their passion doesn’t lead to positive change, causing them to either blame the other side or give up altogether. These people have never understood that reality doesn’t change through desire, but rather through building skills and using those skills to solve problems. Skills, whether it’s framing a house, designing a computer program, or leading an institution, are the tools by which we shape the world around us.

This isn’t just my idea; God makes it clear that skills are an important part of using His creation to its full potential. Listen to how Moses describes God’s project to build the tabernacle, the portable tent where He dwelled before the temple was built, in Exodus 35:

Then Moses said to the Israelites, "See, the Lord has chosen Bezalel…and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge, and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. 

And he has given both him and Oholiab…the ability to teach others. He has filled them with skills to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine line, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers."

When God wanted the tabernacle built, He didn’t ask the Israelites, “Who’s passionate about engraving and designing and embroidery?” Instead, He chose people who were skilled in the tasks that needed to be done, and who also had the ability to teach those skills to others. God could have snapped His fingers to make the tabernacle but instead chose to create a world where skills are the pathway to changing reality, whether that’s weaving a beautiful tapestry, performing open-heart surgery, or creating a tight-knit community.

Sadly, people focus so much on their desires for an improved culture that they ignore the fact that someone has to gain the skills needed and do the hard work of actually solving the problems.

• Don’t just desire the end of homelessness, develop the skills to increase the supply of housing or break the cycle of addiction.

• Don’t just desire that struggling communities improve, develop the skills to create jobs for non-college-educated workers or teach elementary school kids how to read.

• Don’t just desire that political polarization would decrease, develop the skills to facilitate honesty in journalism, reconciliation in politics, and a spirit of mutual community.

The solution to the millions of problems that we face isn’t to shout our desires louder and louder, but rather to build the skills and then go do the work. Instead of spending so much time talking about your desires to see your marriage, family, church, community, workplace, or country improve, follow this roadmap:

1. Figure out what you desire to change, whether big or small.

2. Uncover the problem, or at least a contributing factor to the problem.

3. Identify and acquire the skills needed to address the problem.

4. Use your skills to work at solving the problem. 

5. Admit your shortcomings, gain more skills, and try again.

You won’t solve every problem in society overnight, sin and brokenness will always be entrenched in our lives, but taking a skills-based approach to your desires will help you make a positive contribution and change reality for the better. You’ll become a better friend, spouse, teacher, boss, worker, or citizen.

Some people will scoff at this. They think the problems are too big, the issues are too systemic, and the other people are too evil! So they focus on trying to gain influence by announcing their desires to everyone else, as if to say, “See how much I care about all of these things!” But the book of Proverbs tells us that skill, not desire, is what influences the direction of cultures and countries. Proverbs 29 says:

Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.

So if you want to change reality and make things better, don’t just focus on shouting your desires louder and louder. Instead, work at your skills, the ones God has gifted you for and called you to, and you will change the world around you for the better. Then, when the leaders around you see the good work that you are doing, they will give you the platform to impact society at levels you never could imagine.

Your desires for change are good, but let those desires motivate your efforts to identify and acquire the skills you need to help other people thrive.

the overlooked key to reaching your potential

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So many people want to reach their potential in life, yet so few do. Why? For many people, it’s something surprisingly simple: they lack the right skills. They never develop the skills they need to succeed and end up living ineffective lives. But if you want to reach your potential, it’s key that you start working today to develop the skills that you will need five years from now.

This might sound both obvious and unimportant, but few people ever think about developing their skills ahead of time, especially once they’re done with school. But if you want to be effective in life and fully use your gifts, you need to start working on new skills today.

Before we address why that’s so important, we need to define what a skill is. A skill is just the ability to do something well. Our culture contains millions of skills, ranging from fixing an engine to growing food to leading an organization. Having skills allows you to use the tools, raw materials, and resources in ways that solve the problems that society faces. While many people make a distinction between hard skills (technical skills) and soft skills (emotional skills), you need both types to excel in life.

Unfortunately, few people ever think about skills, choosing instead to obsess over talent. We see a skilled surgeon and attribute it to talent. But talent is just a natural aptitude towards a skill, it is not the skill itself. Talent is never enough; even the most talented surgeons still have to go to medical school to learn the skills of surgery. That’s why athletes like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant spent hours practicing basketball every day, their talents had to be developed into skills.

That’s good news, though! Why? Because it means that skills can be learned. While our society often focuses on talent (the natural aptitudes we each possess), talent is only helpful when we use it to develop valuable skills. So if you want to reach your potential, you can’t rely on your natural talents but need to cultivate the skills you’ll need in the future. People who reach their potential are the ones who put in the long, hard work of building skills when no one is watching.

That’s why I’ve come to believe that if you want to reach your potential in life, you need to start developing the skills you will need five years from now. While there’s nothing magical about this number, it’s close enough that you have some idea about where your life will be, while also being far enough away that you have some time to tackle a bigger skill.

There are three major reasons that you need to start developing the skills you’ll need in five years today:

1. valuable skills take years to learn.

The first reason that you need to start learning a skill five years in advance is that every part of our world is complex. Because of this increased complexity, it takes longer to master a skill to the degree needed to be helpful to someone else. For example, one hundred years ago a farmer just plowed his field, planted some seeds, and prayed for rain. Today, a farmer has to be skilled in crop science, global markets, and government policy, while managing millions of dollars in equipment and loans. The same is true in health care, technology, and almost every other area of life. Whether you are trying to get into photography, become fluent in a foreign language, or teach 7th graders how to think, it takes time in our complex world to develop the knowledge, wisdom, and expertise that constitutes real skill.

When I started my apartment cleaning business in New York City, I assumed that cleaning was low-intelligence work that I could be perfect at after a few months. Much to my surprise, I found that it took me four years of cleaning to excel at the work. I was always learning new techniques and skills to do a better job. Now if that is true with cleaning, a relatively simple skill, imagine how much more it is true in the 99% of work and life that is more complex?!

Because of the complexity of our world, you need to start working today on the skills that you’ll need in five years. This will give you the time to absorb the information, practice the tasks, learn from your mistakes, and develop the beginnings of mastery.

2. opportunities rarely show up on your timetable.

The second reason you need to start learning a skill five years in advance is that opportunities rarely show up on your timetable. Most people don’t think ahead about what skills they will need in the future because they assume life will give them a 12-month heads up before every opportunity appears. But opportunities in life don’t come with a warning, they just show up. No one ever says, “I’m going to need a graphic designer in two years…can you get ready for then?” Of course not. They will need a skilled person right then. And so when you plan and build valuable skills, you will be ready to capitalize on opportunities when they arise.

I spent much of my post-seminary years studying Pastor Tim Keller’s ministry in New York City, never thinking I would live in NYC. I developed my ministry skills in part by listening to his sermons, reading his books, and even reading the books that he referenced. It took hours and hours of work. Five years after I started, I ended up in New York and on a whim, applied to work at the church he led. When the interviewing pastor asked me, “Why are you a good fit for Redeemer?” I was able to demonstrate my understanding and knowledge of the skills it would take to succeed in ministry in New York. If I had waited until I got the interview to start developing the ministry skills that I needed, I could have never fit five years of growth into one week of preparation. It was only because I’d been developing the ministry skills that they were looking for for five years that I was able to get the job.

3. nobody is going to ask you to get ready for a future job.

The third reason you need to start learning a skill five years in advance is that nobody is going to ask you to get ready for a future job. Everybody is so busy thinking about their own life and trajectory they’re not going to have time to think about yours. So don’t expect your teacher or boss to give you step-by-step directions on how to reach your potential. After all, they probably don’t even know what direction you want to go in with your life.

Instead, you need to take responsibility to figure out where you want to go in life and then start preparing the skills that you will need to help you get there. Effective people take initiative and pursue the skills training they will need, whether that’s going to grad school, reading books on their own, or setting aside time to practice 10 hours a week. Sadly, so many people never think ahead in life, causing them to never take any initiative in attaining the skills they’ll need. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: “Of course, I could never be successful, so why should I get the skills to be successful.” Then when they aren’t successful they say, “See, I was right, I wasn’t cut out to be successful.”

I spent my late 20s and early 30s studying marketing and practicing my writing 10-15 hours a week, not because anyone asked me to, but because I enjoyed both subjects. While I wasn’t sure how those skills would be helpful, I knew that they would be good to have. When the pandemic forced me to close my cleaning business, I was able to get a job writing in the marketing department at a Christian college here in NYC. If I hadn’t planned ahead and taken the initiative to work on my writing skills on my own, I never would have been prepared when the writing opportunity arose.

so why don’t we spend more time building skills?

I hope you see how important it is to start building the skills you’ll need in the future today. But if working on your skills is such an important way to increase your effectiveness and reach your potential, then why doesn’t everyone do it? Here are a few reasons why:

• We see skills as magical: because we confuse skills with talent, we think that skills are magical abilities. This creates a false determinism towards skill development, causing people to think they’ve either got it or they don’t, so why bother trying? But while talents make you predisposed towards certain skills, everyone can learn, practice, and build new skills.

• We’re lazy and distracted: let’s face it, gaining new skills takes hard work and discipline. Scrolling your phone, watching TV, or hanging out with your friends will always be easier than learning a new skill, especially if you don’t need it right now. The future feels a long way off, so we try to maximize our comfort today and avoid thinking about the future.

• We don’t think we need new skills: many people arrogantly assume that they don’t need new skills, so they never think about gaining or developing their skills. These people believe they’re already near the top, so they never read books, go to conferences, or learn from people more skilled than they are. They are then puzzled and frustrated when their peers advance faster and live healthier and more successful lives than they do.

These common reasons keep so many people from building the skills they’ll need to excel. But not building your skills runs contrary to everything God teaches us in the Bible. He calls each of us to be good stewards of the gifts, talents, and opportunities that He has given to us. To do that, we need to cultivate our skills so that we can use them to serve in His kingdom.

so how do you know what skills to work on?

Some of you are probably thinking, “But I have no clue what skills I should start to work on?” So here are a few ways to discern what skills you could start to work on:

1. Figure out what skills you are drawn to.

You can start by thinking through what skills you’re naturally drawn to. As you went through school were there subjects or tasks that you connected with? Start learning about and trying different skills and see which ones you gravitate towards.

2. Figure out where you want to go in life.

Another way to determine what skills to learn is by working backward from where you want to end up. If you want to work at a tech start-up, learn to code. If you want to be an artist, study perspective and color theory. If you want to start a restaurant, get a job as a line cook. Don’t be afraid to pick a dream job in the distance and then get to work on building up the stable of skills that you will need to get there. And don’t worry if your interests sound weird to the people around you. God gifts us all in surprising ways and just because “people like us don’t do those things,” that doesn’t mean that you can’t excel in it.

3. Identify what skills people have in roles you would like.

Sometimes the easiest way to see what skills you should be building is to study or interview the people you’d like to become. Whether you want to be a principal, coach, CFO, or politician, thousands of people have gone before you that you can learn from. Study their paths and the skills they needed, either by meeting with them or by reading about their lives.

4. If you don’t know where you’re going yet, focus on general skills.

If you still don’t know what skills to start working on, then pick multi-disciplinary skills that will be important in every field. Communication and relational skills are valued in every field, so if you don’t know what else to do, get better at things like writing, speaking, making videos, or solving conflict. These skills will give you a great foundation to be in a position or job where you can learn more technical skills.

so what now?

People who achieve long-term success are rarely overnight successes or lucky. Rather, they are those who build skills before they will need them. Sadly, so much talent gets wasted because people never develop their talents into skills. The future is going to come whether you acknowledge it or not, so be proactive and start preparing yourself for 2029 and beyond.

appendix of skills

Here’s a short list of skills to jumpstart your thinking. And keep in mind, within each of these skills are thousands of even more specialized skills! You can get better at:

• Teaching

• Painting

• Welding

• Woodworking

• Sewing

• Public speaking

• Analyzing data

• Understanding statistics

• Investing in stocks

• Storytelling on social media

• Remodeling homes

• Playing a musical instrument

• Graphic design

• Fundraising

• Managing a project

• Hosting events

• Understanding a specific period of history

• Lean manufacturing

• Supply chain and import/exports

• Speaking a foreign language

• Singing

• Creating a website

• Campaigning for a politician

• Fixing computer networks

• Using symbolic logic

• Foreign policy

• Understanding ocean currents

• Developing new medicines

And many more!

who is the main character of your life?

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Have you ever stopped and considered who is the main character of your life? That’s easy, we think: it’s me! Who else would be after all? And so we go through life assuming that we're the lead actor in our personal movie, with the people around us ranging from extras to supporting actors, there to advance our story and ensure we have a happy ending.

As the main character of our movie, we also serve as the director, since we believe we have the perfect vision for what our life movie should look like. This causes us to tell everyone around us how they should act and what roles they should play to make our movie perfect.

We then see God as the producer. He hovers somewhere off the set, in charge of securing the financing and making sure everything goes according to our schedule. We don’t want his hands-on help with our movie, though, since he doesn’t get our creative vision for what we’re trying to do with our lives, after all.

Whether it’s through social media or pop psychology, we’re told to confidently take charge of our personal narrative and make sure that we are following our passions and prioritizing our dreams, hopefully in a way that gets us more status, attention, and eyeballs on our lives.

And if our life movie goes well, we hopefully find the right supporting cast (spouse and close friends), who will help us look good and give us a perfect Hollywood ending, making us feel like Joseph Gordon Levitt when he dances down the sidewalk in 500 Days of Summer to Hall and Oates.

But while this is attractive at first, it’s a disastrous way to approach life. When everyone tries to be the main character of this movie called life, we get into power struggles and conflict with the people around us. We're upset that they want to be the hero of their movie and refuse to play a supporting role in ours. And they’re upset that we want to be the hero of our own movie and refuse to play a supporting role in theirs.

This approach also creates so much fear and pressure. Since our lives are unpredictable, we're always anxious about whether they will follow our script: "Is my perfect ending going to happen? Am I going to get the guy/girl? Am I going to be the hero?” And this makes us so afraid of the movie going "off script," that we spend more time thinking about how our movie is going than actually living life. 

But if we want to live well, we have to admit that we're not the lead actor in our lives and turn that role over to Jesus. Our lives are not about being the main character of our own story, but rather about participating in God's story: that through Jesus Christ, God has rescued us from our sin and is working to make all things new, culminating in the new heavens and new earth. 

We'll never flourish to the degree God intended until we recognize that our lives shouldn't revolve around our dreams, agenda, and desires, but rather God's will for our lives. When we do this, we're set free from a role we can't play, being the main character of the universe, and instead can use our lives the way we were meant to: to bring glory to God. 

You have to admit that you don't have what it takes to be the main character of the universe and instead be willing to become a supporting actor in God's great drama: the reconciliation of the universe to himself through his Son. While that sounds like death to our attention-seeking selves, it's the only way to be set free into the life that you were meant to live. 

And Jesus said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. 

beatitude recap: whew we made it!

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Somehow, someway, I’ve finally worked my way through Jesus’ Beatitudes! It’s always easier for me to start a new project than to finish an existing one, so I’m glad to have carried it through to completion.

I figured it would be nice as a final recap to give a one-sentence summary of each essay all in one place. I hope that these essays gave you a new perspective on the Beatitudes and helped you to understand how we are all so influenced by the beliefs and norms of the culture around us.

As always, I appreciate your support of my writing and am thankful for your willingness to engage with these ideas!

our secular culture’s approach to flourishing

• The key to flourishing in our secular culture’s approach is working to create a personal kingdom big enough to satisfy all of your desires in life. You do this by imitating the successful, working hard to create your own success, and using your success to have a lifestyle of consumption.

Jesus’ approach to flourishing

• The key to flourishing in Jesus’ approach isn’t found in building a personal kingdom big enough to satisfy all of your own desires, but rather by being born again, receiving God’s kingdom, and living out of God’s new desires in you.

the beatitudes: Jesus’ practical plan for flourishing

• The Beatitudes are not a roadmap to prove that you deserve God’s blessing, but rather are Jesus' grace-filled invitation to participate in the flourishing life of God's kingdom.

how do you follow the beatitudes?

• If you try to follow Jesus’ Beatitudes through your own willpower you’ll fall into either legalism or cheap grace. Biblical obedience happens as you put off your old self, are renewed through the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ new life, and put on the new self to become like Christ.

beatitude #1: how do you see yourself?

• Secular culture says: you will flourish when you are proud in spirit and recognize that you are the most important person in the world and are capable of solving all of your problems, which will give you the mindset, energy, and endurance to ensure your success. 

• Jesus says: you will flourish when you are poor in spirit, recognizing that you're a spiritual beggar who is empty and has to rely on God for everything. Spiritual beggars flourish because they are the people God gives His kingdom to.

beatitude #2: how are you trying to be happy?

• Secular culture says: you will flourish when you make the pursuit of pleasure the most important thing in your life. This will allow you to create a life where you’ll never need to be comforted since you’ll avoid the effects of sin at all costs.

• Jesus says: you will flourish when you spiritually mourn over your sins and the brokenness of the world, because as you do, God will comfort you and will one day restore everything to its original glory.

beatitude #3: how are you trying to make a flourishing life happen?

• Secular culture says: you will flourish when you do everything you to gain as much power as possible, and then use that power to make everyone and everything around you fit your desires.

• Jesus says: you will flourish when you are meek and completely surrendered to God's will since God will act on your behalf in this life and will give you an eternal inheritance in the next. 

beatitude #4: what’s driving your life?

• Secular culture says: you will flourish if you hunger and thirst for success, prestige, and affluence since these things will help you build such a large personal kingdom that you’ll be sure to satisfy all of your desires.

• Jesus says: you will flourish when you hunger and thirst for things to be made right according to God's will since God will satisfy your every desire, both now and in eternity.

beatitude #5: how do you create social change?

• Culture says: you will flourish when you judge others against your ideals, point out their flaws, and punish them until they change. 

• Jesus says: you will flourish when you are merciful because it shows that you understand your own brokenness and need for God’s gracious mercy, which he will extend to you on Judgment Day.

beatitude #6: what’s the most important thing in your life?

• Culture says: you will flourish if you believe that you’re the center of the universe, obsess over yourself, and prioritize your flourishing over everything else.

• Jesus says: you will flourish when you set your heart completely on God and seek to serve and honor Him in everything that you do.

beatitude #7: how do you flourish when there’s conflict?

• Secular culture says: you will flourish when you do everything you can to win every conflict possible so that you can ensure that you get the spoils of society.

• Jesus says: you will flourish when you approach conflict as a peacemaker since your radical behavior will show that you truly are a child of God.

beatitude #8: whose approval do you need to flourish?

• Secular culture says: you will flourish when you seek and get the approval of the popular, powerful, and successful, for they will give you access to all of the things you need to build your kingdom.

• Jesus says: you will flourish when you obey God and seek His approval above everything else, even if it results in persecution, because you have a future life and treasure awaiting you that nothing on earth can take away. 

Thanks again for reading!

beatitude #8: whose approval do you need to flourish?

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“Everybody wants to make a difference in the world, only a few people want to be different from the world.” — Bob Goff

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” — G.K. Chesterton

In his eighth and final Beatitude, Jesus forces you to ask yourself: whose approval do you think you need to flourish? While many people may act like they’re unique and don’t need anyone else’s approval, in reality, no person is an island. Every human being needs outside approval to create a sense of self-worth and feel validated.

Why is it important to understand whose approval you’re trying to get to flourish? Because how you answer this question will drive how you live and whom you seek to obey. That’s why Jesus uses His last Beatitude to challenge the secular approach to get approval while giving you a radically new way to think about flourishing.

part 1: the secular approach to flourishing

In the secular approach to flourishing, you are taught that if you want to flourish, you need to get the approval of the social insiders. These are the people in every community and culture who control money, power, and status. The secular approach says that if you can get these people’s approval, you’ll be able to get the success you’ll need to build a huge personal kingdom and flourish.

Why is the approval of the social insiders so important? Because they act as gatekeepers to the spoils of society. They control the wealth, institution, public opinion, and availability of opportunities that create the ladder to success, status, and prestige. And so from a young age in life, you learn that if you want access to the things you think need to flourish, you better get the approval of an insider. For example:

• If you want to get an A, you need to get the approval of your teacher.

• If you want to be popular, you need to get the approval of the cool kids.

• If you want to get into an elite college, you need to get the approval of the admissions department.

• If you want to get the promotion, you need the approval of your boss.

In all of these cases, your ability to flourish is dependent on getting the insider to approve of you. If you can do that, then you’ll get access to the things you need to get an elite degree, the perfect job, or respect from your peers.

And so in your desire to get the approval of the insider, you begin to obey them, hopeful that if they like you, they’ll invite you into their universities, companies, and friend groups. You work hard to get their approval and make sure that you never offend them, for fear that if you do, you’ll lose their approval and thus the access to the things you need to build a booming personal kingdom.

so how do you get approval? 

So if getting the approval of social insiders is so important, then how do you get it? Our secular culture makes it clear: if you want the approval of insiders, then you need to obey whatever they find popular. And so, as you grow up, you work hard to get the approval of the people with social, economic, and political power by:

1. Identifying the inner circle that you want to be a part of and study their idealized beliefs, attitudes, and actions.

2. Adopting their beliefs, attitudes, and actions, conforming your life to theirs as much as possible, in hopes that they will approve of you and give you access to the money, prestige, power, and opportunities that they control.

3. Creating reasons and rationalizations for why you adopted the popular opinion on the matter, instead of admitting that you just want to ensure that you get the approval of the right people.

Every person goes through this process over and over, as you observe what beliefs are popular among the people who control the inner circles that you want to be a part of and then adjust your life to get their approval.

While people act like they choose their moral, religious, and political beliefs only after careful thought and consideration, in reality, most people see what’s popular with the people around them and then create arguments ex post facto to justify their beliefs.

And so in our secular culture, there’s very little conviction or principle. Almost every position that you take is a pragmatic one, as you adapt and adjust your beliefs to maintain the approval of the people who control culture, conforming to what’s popular, in hopes that this will help you get ahead in life.

how does this play out?

This secular approach creates a culture where every community breaks down into three groups. There is the:

• Inner circle, which consists of the social insiders, who are the people in any community who have status, prestige, and power. They are the professors, celebrities, politicians, businesses, or just the most successful person, who has control over the political, educational, and religious institutions.

• Middle circle, which is the next ring out, and consists of the “wannabes.” The wannabes are ambitious, young people who desperately want to be in the inner circle someday. They want to become the next generation of cultural elites, and so are ultra-concerned with getting the inner circle’s approval.

• Outer circle, which consists of everybody else. The outer circle is made up of the people who would like to be an insider, but don’t care enough to obsess over the approval of the elites. They’re more focused on going to work, raising their children, enjoying life, and feeling like they are a good person.

In a secular culture, the inner circle controls the culture and takes on the responsibility of being the ultimate moral authority. Since there is no God to define what is right and wrong, the insiders socially construct morality based on what sounds good to them. They then use their positions of social, financial, and institutional power in mass media, higher education, business, and the government to broadcast their views, in hopes that they will become the norms of society.

Today, the social insiders in our culture believe things like:

• No reasonable person can believe in God or follow Christianity.

• To deny any sexual desire is oppressive.

• Sin not only doesn't exist but should never be mentioned due to how much trauma it causes.

• If the government just had enough money for education, infrastructure, and social programs, all of our major problems could be solved. 

• My current group has cultivated the most perfect moral beliefs in history.

These beliefs are assumed to be true, not because they are proven, but because our social and cultural elites hold them. This group always believes that they hold the most sophisticated moral beliefs in the history of humanity and are a paradigm of goodness. They create an environment where they give their approval and grant access to their circles to anyone who obeys them as the ultimate authority while withholding approval and access to anyone who disobeys them.

Wannabes read between the lines, and understand that if they are ever going to get access to the universities, jobs, and social circles they need to succeed, they have to get the approval of the insiders. So they uncritically adopt the popular beliefs, hoping that their obedience will convince the insiders to give the wannabes the jobs, status, and power they’ll need to reach the upper echelons of society.

But the wannabes do more than just obey the insiders. Wannabes also act as a societal police force, pushing the insiders’ belief on the outer circle, everybody else, and punishing them when they disobey. The wannabes do the dirty work of enforcing en vogue beliefs, in hopes that their zeal for the cause will impress the insiders and lead to social rewards.

And so they police others through things like:

• Social media, where they attack and belittle anyone who disagrees with them.

• Pop culture, where they ridicule and make fun of those with a different opinion.

• Social circles, where they make anyone who holds an unpopular belief feel awkward and strange till that person is excluded and ostracized.

• Being a tattle-tale, where they complain to the insiders about anyone who breaks a rule and try to get them fired, expelled, or at least condemned.

This creates a chilling effect, where more and more ordinary people self-regulate their behavior and speech, afraid that if they don’t conform to what’s popular, the wannabes will make fun of them, condemn them, and freeze them out of society. As wannabes coerce people to conform to the insiders’ vision of morality, they always create a “scarlet letter,” an unforgivable sin that requires social ostracization and exclusion.

The 19th Century British politician John Stuart Mill called this the "tyranny of public opinion," where members of society tyrannize anyone who disagrees with them, using social, economic, or physical threats and punishment to force those with unfashionable beliefs to conform to their view of the world.

The wannabes hammer on general society, making sure everyone knows that if you want to be accepted by the cool and sophisticated people and get the approval you’ll need to become popular, wealthy, and powerful, you have to obey the insiders’ beliefs. A few examples of this are:

• A college student unquestionably adopts the beliefs of her sophisticated college professor so she can get an A in the class and get his recommendation for a top internship. She begins to look down on her backward hometown and makes fun of her traditional parents, embarrassed that they are so antiquated.

• An actor moves to LA and starts to write a script for a TV show. His plot pushes new sexual mores and makes old-fashioned people the butt of every joke since he knows that the network executives want this kind of material.

• The young professional proudly supports all of society’s latest trendy beliefs on her social media and shames anyone who disagrees with her. She’s never investigated the issues, but she knows that all of her coworkers will see her posts, so if she wants to advance at work, it’s best if she goes along with their views.

These are simple examples, but hopefully, they show how wannabes will do whatever it takes to get the approval and acceptance of the insiders. While wannabes tell themselves that they are fighting for what is “right”, in reality, they’re often just adopting what’s popular out of a self-interested desire to be successful.

This system is effective because it harnesses the desire of ambitious young people and withholds the spoils of success from them unless they both conform to the insider’s beliefs and force their friends and peers to follow these rules as well.

what’s the result of this system?

The secular approach to flourishing creates an environment where moral commitments become conditional, meaning that you’ll believe whatever’s popular to get the approval of the people who can help you succeed. Everybody’s like the comedian Groucho Marx, who said, "These are my principles, and if you don't like them...well, I have others." 

Most people just go with the flow and will do whatever it takes to maintain the approval of the people in power. J.C. Ryle said that people are:

Like dead fish, they go with the stream and tide: what others think is right, they think is right; and what others call wrong, they call wrong too. They dread the idea of going against the current of the times. In a word, the opinion of the day becomes their religion, their creed, their Bible, and their God. 

And so we drift along with what’s popular, accepting the norms of our peers and adopting those beliefs when it’s convenient for our success. It's easy to go along with the crowd. It's safe, it's comfortable, it's affirming, it feels right. "Look," we tell ourselves, "How could all of these people be wrong?"

We do everything we can to fit in with the powerful, hopeful that if we do, we’ll have a comfortable and pleasant life surrounded by the safety of popular opinion. Despite our culture’s obsession with personal authenticity, groupthink becomes the norm, and everyone follows the crowd, afraid that if they don’t they’ll be on the “wrong side of history.”

why does this approach not create flourishing?

But no matter how much you try to flourish by seeking the approval of the in-group, it won't work. Why? Because when you allow other human beings to be your moral authority and live for their approval it’ll create all kinds of problems. It causes:

• Moral relativism: because morality is seen as a social construct in our society, there is no ultimate source of right and wrong. And since there is no ultimate authority to say something is wrong, everyone pursues their own personal “truth,” meaning that you can do whatever you can get away with, which leads to all kinds of evil.

• Obedience that’s only based on fear and coercion: people live in constant fear that they’ll disobey what’s popular and will be excluded or rejected. This creates a chilling effect in society, where people won’t admit to believing anything other than the popular “authorized opinion.”

• Destroyed lives: when someone breaks a rule, everyone punishes them for what they’ve done. Mob “justice” will be pursued until the person’s life has been ruined, leaving wrecked lives everywhere.

• Cultural disasters: because every person is rushing to obey what’s popular among social insiders, society has huge moral blind spots, which causes them to follow all kinds of moral fads and trends. This allows a culture to commit unspeakable atrocities without batting an eye, leading to things like the Holocaust, U.S. slavery, abortion, and countless other dictators and genocides.

Pursuing flourishing by obeying what's popular is a recipe for disaster. Most of the greatest moral catastrophes were popular at the time, which is why Mark Twain remarked: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” Jesus agrees in Luke 6, saying, “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” In a broken and corrupt world, what is popular and what is right rarely go together.

so why do we live like this?

So why are we so concerned with obeying what’s popular and getting approval from the people who are in power? Because deep down, all of us have a need to be accepted and approved. And so we’re afraid that if we don’t follow what’s popular, we’ll be rejected by society and cut off from our peers.

The Bible calls this the “fear of man,” the psychological fear that occurs when we’re afraid of how other people will react if we don’t conform to their beliefs and values. This fear hovers around us like a blanket of fog, using peer pressure to force us to conform to whatever’s popular at the moment.

The more secular our culture becomes, the more we’ll all struggle with this fear of man. Why? Because, as Australian pastor Mark Sayers says, “Secularism represents a shift from the vertical authority of God to the horizontal authority of the crowd.” Rather than treating God as the authority in our lives, we let what’s popular with the crowd be our authority, and so we grow afraid of its disapproval. As another pastor put it:

The person(s) whose reward of approval we desire most — whose curse of disapproval we most fear to receive — is the person(s) we will obey, our functional god.

And so we obey the dictates of popular culture, hoping that if we can get the approval of the powerful and connected, we’ll get the success we think we need to flourish.

so what’s the root problem?

So why are we need other people’s approval so badly? Because we are trying to replace the approval that we all lost when we lost our relationship with God.

When Adam and Eve were in a perfect relationship with God in the Garden of Eden, they didn’t need the approval of anyone else. They were able to flourish because they felt safe and secure in God’s approval.

But once they disobeyed God and rejected Him as the authority in their life, they also lost His approval. Because of that, every human being lives in a constant state of fear and insecurity. Why? Because the rejection of a relationship with God leaves us with two major problems:

1. We’re too broken to be moral authorities: because our hearts are corrupted by sin, we can’t understand what is truly good for society. We’re all morally messed up, and as the prophet Isaiah says, we “call evil good and good evil.” We’re confused morally, and think that good is bad and bad is good. 

   Not only are we deceived over what is right and wrong, but we also don’t trust God to be our universal authority. This means that we no longer have a moral straight edge by which to evaluate our moral beliefs, which leaves society in confusion. Isaiah warns us of the problems this will cause, saying: "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own sight."

2. We still need to be approved: But just because we have rejected God’s authority and lost his approval doesn’t mean that our need for approval has gone away. The question, "Am I worthy of being approved?" hangs over our heads and drives us to seek out approval from the people around us. We all ache for an outside person to give us their approval so that we can tell ourselves that we’re okay. But no matter how much horizontal approval we get, it will never take the place of the vertical approval that we need from God.

Our rejection of God as an ultimate authority combines with our need for cosmic approval to create a toxic situation in society. We build moral authority off of our warped hearts and then force people to conform to a broken system of thought. Paul tells us in Romans 1 this is what will happen when human beings rejected God:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Whenever a person tries to flourish by rejecting God and gaining the approval of the people with power, it creates a life of fear, futility, and foolishness.

part 2: Jesus' approach to flourishing

In Jesus’ last Beatitude, He rejects this secular approach to flourishing, instead teaching that true flourishing occurs in the exact opposite conditions: you’ll flourish not when you are approved by the popular and powerful, but rather when you are persecuted by them. He says:

Flourishing are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake because theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Of all of Jesus’ Beatitudes, this one is the craziest. How could being persecuted ever be a part of a flourishing life? But Jesus isn’t telling his followers that persecution is good, but rather giving you an incredible promise: if you make me your highest authority and follow my approach to flourishing, because of the paradoxical nature of God’s kingdom, you’ll flourish even during persecution.

what does it mean to be persecuted?

While the idea of persecution is easy enough to understand, Jesus doesn’t say that everybody who is persecuted for whatever reason will flourish. The promise of flourishing is only those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

So why did Jesus add this descriptor? Because He knew how many people would use this Beatitude to excuse away their bad behavior. People can misread this teaching and think that Jesus is telling them that they have to be persecuted to flourish. So they look for ways to be strange, contrarian, and antagonistic towards the people around them. Then, when they’re treated poorly they develop a martyr complex and are filled with self-pity.

But being treated poorly because you’re cruel, rude, or just hard to be around isn’t persecution, it’s just getting what you deserve. The Apostle Peter makes this point when he tells his readers to be careful not to suffer “as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or troublesome meddler.” As D.A. Carson says:

This blessing is restricted to those who suffer persecution because of righteousness. It doesn't say, "Blessed are those who are persecuted because they are objectionable, or because they rave like wild-eyed fanatics, or because they pursue some religiopolitical cause."

So what does it mean to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake? When Jesus adds this descriptor to the Beatitude, He’s saying that you’ll flourish only when you’re persecuted for doing what’s right, for obeying God, and living more and more like Jesus. It’s only persecution that you receive for being righteous that’ll lead to flourishing.

Jesus is making clear that as you pursue righteousness, you will come into contact with people who dislike you, what you believe, and how you act, not through any fault of your own, but just because you are following Jesus and living like him. You aren’t to seek out persecution, like in Islam, where martyrs are guaranteed the highest rewards in the afterlife, or some political cause, but rather should expect it as you pursue a life of Christ-like righteousness.

why does living like Jesus always result in persecution? 

In this Beatitude, Jesus doesn’t say that you’ll flourish if you are persecuted, but rather when you are persecuted. He makes it clear that everyone who follows his Beatitudes should expect persecution. This shouldn't surprise us, as the Apostle Paul warns in 2 Timothy 3 that "all who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted." 

But why does living like Jesus always lead to persecution? Because in a world that has rejected God, when you show genuine Christ-like behavior, they’ll hate you, just like they hated Jesus. Jesus tells this to his disciples in John 15:

"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you."

Since Jesus was hated for being at odds with the values and beliefs of the culture around him, if you follow Him, you will be, too. As Jesus explains in John 3, true holiness will always prompt a negative reaction from those opposed to Him:

The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Why does this happen? Not because Jesus and His followers are trying to condemn others, but rather because their holiness exposes the sins of other people. When you live like Jesus, you force people to encounter the kingdom of God and its radically different values, which challenge everything in the secular kingdom of self. Whey they see someone who is:

• Poor in spirit, it’ll convict them of their pride and arrogance.

• Mourning over sin, it’ll convict them of their indifference to sin and suffering.

• Surrendered to God, it’ll convict them of their desire for power and control.

• Hungering and thirsting for things to be made right in the world, it’ll convict them of their selfishness for personal success.

• Living with a pure heart towards God, it’ll convict them of their dishonesty and hidden motives.

• Merciful towards others, it’ll convict them of their judgmental and harsh attitudes.

• Working for peace, it’ll convict them of their desire to fight and destroy others.

Anyone whose heart hasn’t been changed by the Holy Spirit hates Jesus’ approach to flourishing. They hate that He challenges their popular thinking and systems of power. They hate that he tells them to repent of their sin and surrender their lives to him. And so when you follow Jesus and live out the Beatitudes, they will hate you, too.

Peter explains in 1 Peter 4 that when you quit following the world and start following Jesus, you can expect to be persecuted:

For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry. They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you.

If you let God and His word be your authority on any topic, whether it’s money, sexuality, or sin, you’ll be persecuted at some point, while being told that you’re full of condemnation and negativity. They’ll say that you’re an idiot and a bigot and that Jesus’ teachings are:

• Irrelevant, out of date, and no longer useful in today’s world.

• Extreme, promoting intolerance and dangerous thinking, and are fanatical, harmful, and toxic for modern flourishing.

This is how it’s always been. When people come into contact with God's kingdom they’ll either want to be a part of it or will reject it completely; there’s no middle ground. As Clarence Jordan explained: 

"You can't be indifferent to wide-awake Christians, you either have to hate them or love them—you can't ignore them. It isn't so much what they say or what they do. The thing that seems to haunt you is what they are. They confront you with an entirely different way of life, a new way of thinking, a changed set of values, and a higher standard of righteousness. They face you with the kingdom of God, and you either have to accept it or reject it."

This is why there’s persecution: when a Christian looks to God as their ultimate authority and obeys Him, it will mean that you are no longer pining for the approval of earthly insiders. Secular people persecuted Jesus and will persecute His followers because they recognize that they’ll always be a threat to their secular systems of power, status, and wealth. You aren't playing by the same rules. And so they’re afraid that if they allow you to continue, the whole system will come crashing down.

what does persecution look like?

And so our secular culture will try to punish you until you change. And if they can’t change you they will try to discredit you. And if they can’t discredit you, they will do everything they can to get rid of you. At some point, if you are living in Christlike holiness, you’ll experience persecution, in one or more of the following ways:

• Verbal persecution: our secular culture will criticize you, harass you, make fun of you, and discredit your abilities and opinions. They’ll spread rumors and lies about who you are and what you believe, all to make you look bad.

• Mental persecution: our secular culture will seek to shame you, exclude you, manipulate you, and scoff at you. They will stir up others against you and create distrust in your community. They will withhold all approval until you feel strange, unwanted, and crazy.

• Physical persecution: they will destroy your property and possession, and will seek to physically hurt and intimidate you, whether that's through violence, prison, torture, or death.

It’s important to note that persecution will come from both irreligious and religious people. Jesus’ fiercest critics weren’t the Romans, but rather the Pharisees. Both irreligious people and religious people will hate Jesus’ followers for challenging their lifestyle and values and try to eradicate their beliefs from society.

what are you to do when you're persecuted? 

So what are you supposed to do when you are persecuted? Many Christians believe that if they are relevant, nice, and winsome, that they’ll be able to get the approval of the secular world around them. But that will never work because until God works in someone, a secular person will always be opposed to the things of God. Eugene Peterson put it this way: 

"Instead of trying to create utopian conditions out of our own good intentions, placating the opposition, we accept the reality that our life in the kingdom provokes some people to their very worst behavior."

As another pastor said, "No amount of PR work is going to rescue the church from being thought by some as backward and bigoted. You can’t out-nice your way and out-justice your way into cultural acceptance, not if you hold traditional biblical views.”

Why is this? Because as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

But persecution, even if you know it’s coming, is one of the most difficult experiences for a Christian to undergo. That’s why many Christians respond to persecution in one of two ways. They try to:

• Blend in like a chameleon: Many people, especially in more progressive places, try to solve the problem of persecution by assimilating into the local culture and adjusting their beliefs to match their surroundings. They rationalize God’s word and Jesus’ commands away, finding new interpretations and rationalizations to create a Christianity-Lite that waters down anything that secular culture might fight offensive about the Gospel.

• Pull back like a turtle: The other common reaction, especially in more conservative places, is to avoid and hang back from every part of secular culture. These people isolate and avoid places and situations where Christians won’t be welcomed, choosing instead to spend their lives in Christian bubbles where they will always be in the majority. And then when they are “in the world,” they avoid mentioning Jesus or being connected to Christianity until they’re back in the safety of their shell.

Why do we respond to persecution either as a chameleon or turtle? Because we’re ashamed of Jesus. We're afraid of what being associated with Jesus will mean for our friendships, our careers, our reputations. And so we act like Peter, who when asked if he was Jesus’ disciple denied it three times, afraid that if he admitted his connection to Jesus he’d be crucified next.

But Jesus teaches later in the Sermon on the Mount how to respond when you are persecuted. You aren’t to lash out and attack back, or shrink away in fear, but rather stand firm in the faith, loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you.

And we see the change in the disciples, who in Acts 5 when commanded by the Jewish leaders to be quiet about Jesus’ death and resurrection, responded by saying: “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

Followers of Jesus can live without the approval of other people because they are strengthened by the approval of God. As Paul says in Galatians 1: For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or I am trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

so why do the persecuted flourish?

So how can Jesus say that the persecuted flourish? Obviously, the persecuted aren’t flourishing because they are in the midst of easy or comfortable circumstances. But Jesus says that the reason the persecuted flourish is because theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Those who are in God’s kingdom flourish when they’re persecuted, because even though they are rejected by the world around them, someday they’ll receive the ultimate approval that we’re all searching for when God tells them: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

But why can every Christian know that they have God’s approval today? Because on the cross, Jesus, gave up his right to God’s approval and instead took on the rejection from God that we deserve, so that He could give us the approval with God that His life merits.

Knowing that you have God’s approval will give you the inner strength to stand firm against the crowd. You are strengthened and sustained by God’s approval through persecution, because as the Psalmist says in Psalm 118:

The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?

Those who are persecuted flourish, because even if they are killed, death is not the end but merely the beginning of eternal life with God. And so the persecuted live out Pauls’ win-win statement in Philippians 1:

It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Even when all seems lost, the persecuted are strengthened and sustained by the Holy Spirit, recognizing, as Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 4, that these are light momentary afflictions when compared to the glory of eternity with God:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.

And so we are to look forward to the New Heavens and New Earth, where every Christian, as the bride of Christ, will dwell with God like in the Garden of Eden:

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

You will finally be home, reunited with God forever.

but how do the persecuted flourish right now?

But how can someone who is being persecuted flourish right now? Are Christians just supposed to grin and bear persecution until they die? Not at all! Jesus says in the last verse of the Beatitudes that when you are persecuted you are to:

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 

You will flourish when you are persecuted not just because you have eternal life with God awaiting you, but also because it will transform your walk with God in the present. You can rejoice because:

1. You are storing up an eternal treasure: people who want the approval of secular culture are trying to store up treasure here on earth. But those who stand firm through persecution, even though they may lose everything here on earth, can rejoice, because they have a treasure awaiting them that can never be taken away.

2. You are in good company: When you are persecuted, you can rejoice that you are counted to be among God’s most faithful followers, the prophets. When the Apostles were persecuted for preaching the gospel in Acts 5, they “left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.”

As you grow in your ability to rejoice through persecution, you will be a counter-cultural witness to the people around you, showing a secular culture how the gospel truly does bring the flourishing life. We see this firsthand in Acts 7 when a young man named Saul listened to Stephen’s sermon and watched as he was stoned to death. Later, Saul became Paul and became the key apostle of the New Testament.

where do you get the ability to persevere through persecution? 

But where can you get the strength to persevere through persecution? By letting Jesus’ love for you sustain you. Jesus was despised, insulted, and rejected by everyone around him until he was finally crucified on the cross. Jesus endured the cross and despised the shame so that we might be His brothers and sisters in the New Heavens and New Earth.

Jesus died for us, knowing that like Peter we would all be chameleons and turtles, not because of anything that we’ve done, but rather because of his great love for us. “Even if we are faithless,” Paul says, “He remains faithful, for He cannot disown Him.”

Jesus is committed to you through eternity, not because you have always responded perfectly to persecution in the past, but rather because you are a child of God’s kingdom. Jesus’ love and approval should fill you with the strength you need to stand firm in a culture hostile to the things of Christ.

beatitude #7: how do you flourish when there’s conflict?

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“You gotta fight, for your right, to paaaaaaaarty.” — Beastie Boys

One of the biggest obstacles to a flourishing life is conflict. Sooner or later, you clash with the people around you, whether it’s your spouse, your friends, your coworkers, or a larger group in society. No matter who you are, your life will contain conflict.

This creates a key question: how do you approach conflict so that you can flourish? The inability to solve conflict creates all kinds of problems, whether it’s a breakdown in a friendship, tension in a marriage, or a fight between opposing groups.

Not surprisingly, our secular culture and Jesus teach radically different ways to try to flourish through conflict. If you want to flourish, though, you need to know how to approach conflict, whether it’s between friends, coworkers, or countries.

part 1: the secular approach to flourishing

The secular approach to life teaches you that if you want to flourish in conflict, you need to do everything you can to fight and win the conflict. Our secular culture believes that fighting and winning the conflicts of our lives is key to securing what you need to build up a big personal kingdom and flourish. Flourishing are those who win every fight, our secular culture believes, for they will get what they want and need.

From our youngest years, fighting and winning feels like the best way to flourish. Just look at two toddlers; no one has to teach them to fight over the same toy to try to get control of it. Yet both of them believe that if they can win this fight, they’ll reach the pinnacle of three-year-old flourishing!

Our secular culture reinforces this fighting tendency in us, telling us over and over that winners flourish and losers flounder. And so we frame everything in terms of conflict, whether it’s you vs. yourself, you vs. your peers, you vs. your superiors (your parents, teachers, and boss), or you vs. society.

This causes us to see life as an adversarial conflict between competing parties. To flourish, you need to fight against the desires of other people and make sure that you win. Fighting becomes a strategic tool that helps us win over others and ensure we get what we think we need to flourish.

This causes the language of fighting to be everywhere. I recently saw a YouTube ad for a group fighting climate change. The narrator, a young climate change activist, tells the viewer:

This is the moment we’ve been fighting for, where winning is just the beginning; the moment where we turn the crisis of today into the victory of tomorrow.

The message is clear: if we can fight against the opponents of climate change and win, then we’ll create a flourishing world for all. This mentality pervades our culture, telling us that life is a fight, and if you’re going to flourish, you need to make sure you win.

Everywhere you look, life is framed to encourage fighting, whether it’s a group of talk show hosts arguing about the news or 25 single men fighting for the affections of one bachelorette. Everyone’s trying to argue with and attack others, hoping that they have what it takes to win the conflict.

And so we never outgrow our childhood impulses, causing us to view conflict as an opportunity to fight against others and win, with the hope that you can defeat opponents and get what you need to flourish. The winners of these conflicts are celebrated, rewarded, and studied, while the losers are ignored, dismissed, and excluded from life.

what do these fights look like?

Our society cloaks these conflicts under the guise of competition. While competition isn’t inherently bad, when it becomes the lens by which we view everything, it creates a pervasive culture of fighting.

There are two main types of competitions in our society: over and covert. Overt competitions are obvious competitions, which include things like sporting events, homecoming contests, valedictorian awards, job interviews, political elections, real estate offers, and court case verdicts. Everyone knows they are competing against another person, team, or group, all with the hopes of winning the contest.

But there’s a second type of competition that I call covert competitions. Covert competitions are hidden within the structure and events of our daily lives. No one acknowledges that they exist, but yet they often create the fiercest fighting.

Covert competitions are the secret battles in our lives for status, control, and power which cause us to fight over things like:

• Who got into the best college? 

• Who is the most popular person in the friend group?

• Who is the best dressed? 

• Who had the fanciest wedding?

• Who lives in the nicest home and neighborhood?

• Who does the boss like most?

• Who is seen as the smartest? 

• Who pastors the biggest church? 

• Whose political party is in charge?

• Who is the best parent?

These secret competitions, and the desire to win them, vary from subculture to subculture, and even though they’re rarely talked about, they drive so much of our lives. This is why we’re always comparing ourselves to others; it’s how we keep score and figure out who’s winning.

If you listen to the conversations in any coffee shop, bar, or party, they almost always follow the same subconscious fight-to-flourish structure:

I’m trying to flourish by winning these competitions in my life, but because of conflict with someone, either my boyfriend, frenemy, boss, or a political party, I’m not. So if I’m ever going to get what I need to flourish, I need to figure out how to fight these conflicts to ensure that I win. Then I’ll get the money, status, relationships, and opportunities I need to live my best life.

We believe that if we can outlast our peers and win these conflicts for status, power, and wealth, our little wins will set us up for bigger wins, and we’ll eventually create the flourishing life that we’ve always wanted.

why is it so important to fight and win?

Why do we believe that it’s so important to fight and win these conflicts? Because our culture approaches life through the fundamental viewpoint of scarcity: there are a scarce number of opportunities, relationships, and possessions available, so if you want to get what you need to flourish, you have to beat out your peers.

Scarcity thinking causes us to believe that there isn’t enough to go around. There’s a limited number of good jobs, comfortable homes, attractive people to marry, and most importantly of all, spots at the top of the social hierarchy. And so we fight with other people, groups, and cultures, trying to win our way to flourishing.

We see these battles over the scarce yet desirable ‘wins’ as a zero-sum game: for me to win, you have to lose. This kind of zero-sum thinking creates a winner-take-all mentality: if I don’t win the overt and covert competitions of life I won’t get what I need to flourish.

how do you fight?

Once you learn what conflicts are most important to win, then it’s time to fight to win against the other side. Most people will deny that we spend our lives fighting against other people, but let’s be honest, you do. You fight against your spouse or roommate to get them to change your behavior. You fight against your coworkers to get your plan enacted. And you fight against the other political party to help your party win.

But what does it look like to fight in our current culture? There are four major ways that we fight to win in our culture. We fight through:

• Narrative tactics, where we use stories to attack other people to defeat their ideas, beliefs, and goals. Narrative fights show up anywhere there are discussions or arguments (social media, news shows, meetings) and involve using half-true stories as strategic lies to stir up conflict, paint others in a bad light, and rally popular opinion to our side.

• Psychological tactics, where we attack other people’s emotions to get our way. Psychological tactics show up in relationships, families, and friendships, as we use emotional tools to battle against others. We name-call, shame, exclude, disparage, and make fun of others, hoping that by emotionally damaging the other person, we’ll ensure our win.

• Political tactics, where we use institutional power and legal tactics like court cases, laws, and taxes to defeat others within our cultural systems. These tactics show up in every organization, whether it’s the local school board or the U.S. Senate, as we use the political machinery to cheat, bend the rules, or manipulate the game, all to punish others and ensure our victory.

• Physical tactics, where we use force, or the threat of it, to intimidate, bully, and ultimately eliminate our opposition. Physical fighting starts with pushing and shoving, but often escalates to punches and weapons and ultimately ends in murder and war.

We use these tactics to tear down our opponents, making it easier for us to win the competitions of life. We drop bombs on other people, whether it’s through words, emotions, or airplanes, hoping that we can get the wins we think we need to flourish.

but I’m a nice person?!?

At this point, you might be saying, “But I’m a nice person, I don’t fight…much.” Most of us feel a tension: we know we shouldn’t fight, yet we still want our interests to win out. So we’ve developed two techniques that give us plausible deniability that we’re good people, yet still help us win the important conflicts of life.

The first technique is passive-aggressiveness. We mask our fighting attitude in passive tactics, hoping no one will notice the aggressiveness of our backhanded compliments, subtle sarcasm, or faint praise. David described this technique in Psalm 55:

His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords. 

The second technique is the use of champions. A champion is someone who fights on your behalf in the arenas of life, whether that’s the government, pop culture, or social media. You cheer your champion on as they enter into the fray and try to destroy the other side, sharing their content and supporting them financially.

Champions are often media pundits, talk show hosts, politicians, pastors, or activists who offer their services as proxy fighters in the larger culture wars of our society. Supporting and cheering for them allows us to maintain the self-image of being a good person while still getting what we want in our conflict-based culture.

why do we think winning will create flourishing?

Why are we so convinced that winning the conflicts of our lives will create flourishing? Because we think being a winner will help us:

• Create material security: we believe that winners will gain control over the resources and possessions that will eliminate all insecurity and risk in life. We will have enough money for the best healthcare, safest neighborhood, dream retirement, and will never have to worry again. 

• Gain access and acceptance: if we win at life, we believe we will gain access to the social circles, positions, and institutions we need to be accepted and welcomed into the areas of power, wealth, and status.

• Establish self-worth: we believe that if we’re a winner, we’ll differentiate ourselves from other people and gain recognition in the world. We’ll find our place in the world, proving that our ideas, techniques, and causes were right and that we have more value than the losers.

• Achieve immortality: we believe that winners will be remembered forever and will achieve the secular version of eternal life, whether that’s being thought of as the GOAT, induction into a hall of fame, or getting a building named after you. We know we can’t live forever, but we hope that if we become the greatest winner of all time, our legacy will carry on long after we are gone.

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We believe that if we can fight and win the conflicts of life, then we’ll be able to create a personal utopia where we have everything we could ever want: we’ll be popular, wealthy, successful, and powerful, able to control everything and experience the flourishing that we so badly want.

why does fighting to win not lead to flourishing? 

But despite our secular culture’s belief that winning will provide us with acceptance, security, and immortality, in real life, this approach to conflict doesn’t lead to a flourishing life or society. Why? Because when fighting to win because our ultimate goal, we end up destroying our peers, our society, and ultimately ourselves.

Why is the secular approach to flourishing so destructive? Because it leads to:

• Chronic fear and anxiety: we live in a constant state of fear and anxiety over whether we’re going to win the scarce prizes of competitive life. We’re terrified that we’ll lose and will be unworthy of love, acceptance, and self-respect.

• Hating and destroying others: since we are always competing with others, we sabotage and tear down anyone who threatens our ability to win. We refuse to cooperate with them, and instead either withhold help or actively seek to destroy them,

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  lest they claim victory over us.

• Lack of morality: in a winning-based culture, the only real standard of morality is whatever helps you win. The goal of winning justifies any means, whether it’s a dishonest political ad or a bending of the rules. And so people in power game the system through laws and lobbying to ensure that they win and other people continue to lose.

• War: war is the ultimate end of the fighting-to-win approach. We seek to destroy the other side, whether through political, economic, or military force, and eliminate their ability to win. While historically wars were international, we currently have more intra-national wars, as different political parties fight each other in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world, resulting in bitterness and division.

The results of building a culture around fighting to win are disastrous. Approaching conflict with a fight to win perspective destroys relationships and leaves people full of hurt, distrust, and animosity. As Jean Vanier wrote:

When you live in a society of competition, where you find yourself seeking only your own success, you may gain power and money, but you will end up losing what is most valuable in becoming human: to be in a relationship with another person.

Fighting might create short-term wins, but in the long-run it creates so much personal, relational, and societal damage.

What is the root problem?

So if approaching conflict through a fight to win perspective is so destructive, why do we still do it? Why do we fight so much, despite the damage that it causes in our lives?

According to our secular society, the reason we fight so much is because of the exclusive truth claims found in intolerant religions like Christianity. In his enduring hit Imagine, John Lennon sings that if we could just get rid of all belief in religion and heaven and hell, then humanity would live as one.

But if a belief in Christianity, heaven, and hell causes all of the world’s conflict, then why did the Beatles fight and break up? They were rich, popular, and had similar worldviews, so why couldn’t they get along? Because the real reason our lives are filled with conflict and fighting isn’t exclusive truth claims, but rather because we all are at war with God.

When God created the world everyone and everything lived in perfect harmony. Adam and Eve lived in total peace with each other and God, caring for a flawless world where there was no conflict.

But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit, they rejected peace with God and declared war on Him. They followed Satan’s lead and rebelled against God, dissolving their peaceful relationship and choosing to fight Him instead.

When God confronted them about their rejection of Him, he told them that because of their sin there would now be enmity (hostility) between every human being, causing all kinds of tension, conflict, and fighting.

Why was conflict and fighting the inevitable result of our rejection of God? Because:

1. We are now alienated from God: without a relationship with God, every human being feels radically insecure. This causes us to try to be our own god, hoping that if we win and dominate others we can create a sense of security and safety. As David says in Psalm 14: the fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

2. Sin corrupted our hearts: sin changed our hearts so that we hate God and are antagonistic towards Him. Now, seeking out conflict and sowing strife comes naturally to our hearts. Our hearts delight in stirring up conflict and creating division. As the prophet Isaiah said: The wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet and its waters toss up mire and dirt. There is no peace for the wicked.

We were never meant to exist outside of a relationship with God and so without God, we have lost the security and safety that we need to thrive as human beings. We fight to win, hoping to regain some semblance of physical and psychological safety and thinking that if we can build up our personal kingdoms, we’ll be able to flourish apart from God.

We’re like a swimmer outside the safety of the ropes, drifting through the ocean, flailing for anything to hold onto. We fight against others over the driftwood of life, trying to use jobs, homes, money, and relationships to stay afloat. These pieces of driftwood might keep our heads above water on the sunny days, but can’t keep sustain us through the storms of life.

This is why the secular approach to flourishing doesn’t work. Without God, we are radically insecure yet also drawn towards conflict, creating a cultural cocktail that’s always ready to explode. A little friction creates a spark and the world burns on.

Part 2: Jesus’ approach to conflict

When Jesus gives us his seventh Beatitude, he’s confronting our secular culture’s belief that flourishing comes through fighting and winning. Jesus uses His seventh Beatitude to teach the exact opposite perspective:

Flourishing are the peacemakers, because they shall be called sons of God.

There are few goals in society more popular in the abstract than world peace. But while society might not immediately cringe at this Beatitude, people still want nothing to do with Jesus’ message. Why? Because while we want other people to be peaceful, when it comes to conflict in our own lives, our desire for peace disappears and is replaced by a lust for victory over others. We scold other people when they fight, but see our conflicts as righteous wars that we need to win.

But according to Jesus, the only way to flourish is by being a peacemaker, someone who works for peace in a broken and conflict-ridden world. Jesus doesn’t act like conflict doesn’t exist or encourage us to succumb to an easy idealism, but says that if we ever want to flourish, we have to be peacemakers in God’s kingdom, not winners in our own kingdom.

what is peace?

To understand Jesus’ approach to conflict, we first have to get his meaning of peace. To our secular culture, peace is the absence of conflict that occurs when the two sides have stopped fighting.

But that’s not what Jesus means by peace. When Jesus uses peace, he’s referring to shalom, the Hebrew word for peace. Shalom isn’t just the absence of fighting, but according to theologian Cornelius Platinga, is:

The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight — a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be." 

To Jesus, peace isn’t just a break from conflict and fighting, but rather a state of wellbeing where the conflict has been resolved and the relationship is fully restored. Shalom is more than just a ceasefire between enemies, it’s an embrace between friends.

So what does it mean to be a peacemaker?

Jesus’ promise of flourishing, though, isn’t for those who want peace or love peace or hope for peace, but rather for those who MAKE peace. When we see or experience conflict, we are to resist the urge to fight and win and instead are called to resolve the fight and bring restoration to life.

Too often, though, we reject peacemaking and settle for peacekeeping. We try to keep the peace and will do anything to keep conflict from bubbling up. But this leads to all kinds of unhealthy behaviors towards conflict like:

• Apathy: if it doesn’t affect me I don’t really care.

• Avoidance: I’m going to avoid this problem and hope that it’ll go away.

• Appeasing: I’ll just compromise and try to keep everyone happy.

Peacekeepers too often seek to maintain the status quo, settling for an artificial peace. They hope that if we ignore the hurt and anger and conflict in society then it will eventually go away. Peacekeepers are like the false prophets that God talks about in Jeremiah: They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.

So what is peacemaking then? Peacemaking rejects the desire to try to win every conflict, but rather seeks to resolve the conflicts of the world and bring restoration and healing to the relationships.

Peacemakers build bridges to and between people, working to solve the hatred and tension and fear. Peacemakers don’t approach conflict with a “fight to win” perspective, but rather want to heal the tension and reconcile the opposing persons or groups. How do they do this? They…

1. Initiate the conversation: peacemakers cross the divide between the two parties and start the conversation. They don’t feed the tension by avoiding the other person or waiting for them to make the first move, but like Jesus teaches in Matthew 18, they go to the other person first.

2. Pursue the whole truth: peacemakers seek to uncover the whole story and talk through the wounds with both humility and vulnerability. A peacemaker works towards a complete truth by understanding both sides, knowing that “the one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” (Proverbs 18:17)

3. Work towards reconciliation: it’s not enough to just be truthful, peacemakers love their enemies and practice forgiveness as they pursue the healing of the conflict and a rebuilding of trust. We are to “bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:1)

But peacemaking is more than following a list of actions, it’s also having the right attitude. A peacemaker is someone who is:

• Slow to anger: A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. (Proverbs 15:18)

• Avoids gossip: Without wood a fire goes out, without gossip a quarrel dies down. (Proverbs 26:20)

• Responds with gentleness: A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1)

Peacemakers don’t pour gas on conflicts, but rather act as a fire extinguisher, helping to stop the burning and start rebuilding. As God’s followers seek peace in the conflicts of life, truth is discovered, forgiveness is offered, and relationships are restored.

Where do we get the ability to be a peacemaker?

So how do you stop trying to solve conflict by fighting to win and instead live as a peacemaker? Lots of people try to become a peacemaker through human efforts, by trying harder to be a nice person or building their conflict resolution skills.

While these aren’t bad things, they don’t ultimately work because they don’t go deep enough: they don’t solve the root problem of sin. Until your alienation from God has been fixed, you’ll recreate your conflict with God over and over with everyone around you. As the monk Thomas Merton said:

We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.

So how do we make peace with God? That’s the problem, we can’t. We’re not capable of ending our rebellion against God and making amends for our sin.

But that’s the beauty of the gospel: we couldn’t make peace with God, so through the death of His Son, God made peace with Himself on our behalf. Paul explains in Colossians 1 that:

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.

Through the cross, Jesus made peace between you and God, reconciling you to Him and killing off all of the hostility. This reuniting with God brings the wholeness and security to our hearts that we have spent our whole lives searching for.

But Jesus’ death and resurrection does more than just restore your relationship with God. It also changes your heart so that you no longer live out of your old desire to fight and win, but rather are renewed in the peace of the Holy Spirit:

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Now, as a new creation in Christ, you are entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation: you are at peace with God and are tasked with making peace in the places of conflict around you by introducing others to the forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration that is available with God through Jesus Christ.

This doesn’t mean that peacemakers never fight, but rather that they fight against Satan and sin, not other people. As Paul says in Ephesians 6:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Peacemakers also have realistic expectations. They know that sin will always exist in this life, but heed Paul’s command in Romans 12:

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Peacemakers, having been reconciled to God, fight against sin and introduce others to the reconciliation available in God, so that everyone may experience the flourishing that comes from a relationship with God.

but why do peacemakers flourish?

If you’ve ever been caught in between two friends or groups who are fighting, you know that peacemaking doesn’t feel like flourishing. So why then does Jesus say that peacemakers flourish? Peacemakers flourish not because they’ll be loved by their peers or because they’re guaranteed success, but because they’ll be called sons of God.

Peacemakers flourish because they are recognized as God’s children and will be welcomed into His family for all of eternity. God is the ultimate peacemaker, and so when God’s children make peace, everyone will see their family resemblance and recognize that they have a new Father and a new nature. Peacemakers are no longer of their father, Satan, who comes to steal and kill and destroy, but rather are like God, who is always working to bring shalom.

But why does being a child of God lead to flourishing? Because when you are reunited with your heavenly Father, you can trust your heavenly Father’s promises to provide, eliminating the anxiety, insecurity, and scarcity thinking that causes secular people to approach every conflict with a fight-to-win perspective. As Eugene Peterson writes:

When we are God’s son we feel secure in his family. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

When you know you’re secure in God’s family, you can trust Him to provide everything you need to flourish. As Jesus says later in the Sermon on the Mount:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Peacemakers rest in God’s abundance, knowing that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and will give them everything they need to flourish.

And so peacemakers use their lives to pursue peace, not wins, because they know that God will ultimately give them His eternal kingdom. They trust Jesus when he says:

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

They know they’ll be welcomed into the perfect shalom of the New Heavens and New Earth, where the lion lays down with the lamb, just like it was in the Garden of Eden.

so how do peacemakers flourish now?

But peacemakers don’t just sit around waiting for a future flourishing, they are partnering with God to work towards flourishing right now. Peacemakers help create the wholeness and flourishing of biblical shalom because they:

• Live with a spirit of cooperation, not competition.

• Operate out of a spirit of abundance, not scarcity.

• Enter into the mess of society, rather than avoiding it.

• Seek to restore relationships between divided parties.

• Introduce others to Jesus’ reconciling work on the cross.

Peacemakers bring healing and restoration in a broken world, not by being a savior, but rather by pointing other people to their Savior, working to usher in a spirit of reconciliation and harmony.

As peacemakers work towards God’s vision of shalom, everyone flourishes. Grievances are worked through, relationships are restored, communities are made whole. They reweave the fabric of society where it has been ripped apart by sin, creating an interconnected community where truth and love work together to allow people to live God-glorifying lives.

where do we get the power to be peacemakers?

But there’s just one catch: where do you get the power to do something as difficult as peacemaking? Being a peacemaker is scary and costly and will put you in the crossfire between the fights and wars of our culture. You’ll be attacked by both sides and called a coward and a compromiser and a cop-out.

So where do we get the ability to put the concerns for our temporary safety aside and find a willingness to step into the fray? By remembering what Jesus did on your behalf. Jesus came to earth to die not for people who loved him, but rather for his enemies. He volunteered to go on God’s peacemaking mission not at the risk of his life, but rather at the cost of it. He knew that as he worked to make peace between God and his lost children, that he would be rejected, spit on, abused, and ultimately crucified. But yet he still came because of his love for you.

Because Jesus died for us while we were still sinners still fighting against God, we can extend our love to those who are still at war with God, knowing that Jesus paid the ultimate price so that we could experience the reconciling love of the Prince of Peace.

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If you are of a certain age, you might remember the tagline of the 1990s kids movie The Sandlot: “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”

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A famous example of this is from the 1994 Winter Olympics, when figure skater Tonya Harding had her boyfriend attack fellow figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, in hopes of eliminating her from the team and ensuring that Tonya made it.

beatitude #6: what’s the most important thing in your life?

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“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” — David Foster Wallace

Every single person on earth has something that they find most important. They have a goal in life that drives them and motivates them to get up each morning. Whether it’s financial stability, a healthy family, or the approval of other people, every human being has something that they are pursuing.

Why is this important? Because, as the David Foster Wallace quote above shows, when we pursue what’s most important to us, it will always turn into worship. Our choice as human beings is not whether we will worship something, but rather what we will worship?

This quote shows the key difference between our secular culture’s approach to flourishing and Jesus’ approach. In Jesus’ sixth Beatitude, he teaches that if you want to flourish, you have to reject our secular culture’s view of what’s most important and instead adopt his counter-intuitive teaching.

part 1: the secular approach to flourishing 

Our secular culture says that if you want to flourish, you need to make your flourishing the most important thing in your life. To do this, you have to prioritize your personal kingdom above everything else and make that the main thing that you pursue with your life.

In the secular approach, building a personal kingdom

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big enough to meet all of your hopes and dreams and desires becomes the defining goal of our lives. Those who flourish, according to our culture, are the ones who have prioritized themselves and are the most committed to making sure they reach all of their personal, career, financial, and family goals.

Our society tells us the same story about everyone who achieves (i.e. flourishes), whether it’s Olympians, entrepreneurs, Ivy League students, CEOs, celebrities, or influencers: the reason they’re successful is because they wanted it more than everyone else.

This mythologizing develops a fear in young people that if you don’t go all-in on your personal kingdom project, then other people will get the flourishing that you want and you’ll be a failure, stuck in a dull and mediocre life.

Our culture tells you that you need to live your life in service to yourself, always asking: “What would be best for me?” Forget other people, we’re told; if you want to flourish, you need to make yourself the number one priority in your life.”

why do we approach life like this? 

Why does our culture believe that the key to flourishing is prioritizing your flourishing? Because it assumes that the individual is the most important thing in all of society.

This all started in 1637 with a French philosopher named René Descartes. As Descartes searched for something that he could know with absolute certainty, he decided that because he was conscious of his thinking, his mind was his only foundation for certainty. He summarized this "discovery" with his now-famous phrase, "I think, therefore I am."

Why did this simple statement change our culture so much? Because it flipped how we define what is real. Before Descartes, Western culture generally assumed that God defined reality; you’re living in His world. But because of Descartes, the West increasingly rejected this view and came to believe that reality was defined by each individual's mind. Everyone else is living in your world.

This switch kicked off the modern world and turned our culture upside-down, resulting in three new beliefs that still dominate our lives today:

1. The individual is the center of the universe: the universe now revolves around each individual and their reality as they define it. This means that your needs, wants, and desires are the most important thing in the universe. 

2. The individual is the ultimate authority: since you are the center of the universe, you are the ultimate authority of what truth is. What feels true to you is true. Only you can know what is right for you, and you know that by what feels right. 

3. The individual should focus on what is best for them: the individual no longer exists to serve God and society, but rather to pursue their interests as they are served by God and society.

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   Because of this, individuals should only commit themselves to things or attach themselves to others when it benefits them. 

While it took 350+ years, the individualism that Descartes introduced to the world eventually spread from the philosopher’s pen to every part of our day-to-day lives:

• 1637-1750s: Philosophers

• 1760s-1800s: Politicians, writers, poets, intellectual elites.

• 1900-1950s: artists and young people in New York City, Paris, etc. 

• 1960s-80s: college students

• 1990s-present: everybody

The big shift in U.S. culture came in the 1960s and 70s when individualism went from an oddity of the elite to the underlying belief driving all of youth culture.

At that time, young people lived out what sociologists call Expressive Individualism, the idea that you find fulfillment in life by expressing your inner desires. The goal of young people then was to rebel against the khaki pants and white picket fence of traditional “Leave It To Beaver” culture in order to express their individual uniqueness.

But over the last 30 years, we have moved from Expressive Individualism to something that I call Obsessive Individualism. Today, the key to flourishing is no longer believed to be self-expression, but rather self-obsession.

This change happened because as young people of the 1960s and 70s got old, the counterculture became the culture. There’s no shock value left in expressing yourself. While it used to be rebellious to have long hair, wear colorful clothes, get tattoos, skateboard, surf, or smoke weed, now, those are all mainstream lifestyle choices.

Today, the central drive of young people is no longer rebellion against traditional culture, but rather a desire to find their place in a global society. Since everyone is expressing themselves, the best way to differentiate yourself today isn’t by standing out amongst your peers, but rather by rising above them. This is where Obsessive Individualism helps out.

so what is obsessive individualism?

The core belief of Obsessive Individualism is that to flourish, you need to obsess over your kingdom. You do this by:

1. Figuring out your inner passions and choosing your preferred subculture.

2. Obsessing over your kingdom until you outdo everyone around you.

These steps are best described by the two unofficial mottoes of Obsessive Individualism: “Do what you love!” and “Work hard, play hard!”

Obsessive individualism tells you that your personal journey towards a good life is the most important and compelling thing in the world. You are the lead actor in your personal movie, and the people around you are the supporting actors and extras, there to help advance your story and ensure you have the perfect Hollywood ending.

Obsessive Individualism rejects all authority outside of the individual as either antiquated or oppressive, teaching that the only moral rule is:

You are free to do whatever you want as long as it doesn't directly hurt other people.

That’s it. As long as you don’t think that you’re hurting anyone else, you are free to do whatever you want with your body, time, energy, and money.

Obsessive Individualism tells us that if you dedicate your life to your flourishing and outworking your peers, eventually you will have an easy, comfortable life where you never have to do anything hard, uncomfortable, or that you don’t love.

To flourish, you believe that you have to obsess over your kingdom, to meet the standards of success faster and better than your peers. You constantly feel the need to spend more time, energy, and resources on your kingdom, to ensure that you can keep up with your local, and thanks to the internet, global peers.

This causes you to approach everything transactionally, and only commit or attach yourself to people, jobs, or communities who promise to help you get where you want to go as fast as possible. Young people fear that if they don’t obsess over their flourishing, someone else will rise above them and get the life that they want.

so what does obsessive individualism look like?

So what does Obsessive Individualism look like in action? Well, first we follow our passions and choose a subculture that fits what we want out of life. Do you see yourself as a:

• Corporate climber in Manhattan

• Southern sweetheart in Nashville

• Tattooed tech founder in Austin

• Mommy blogger in Dallas

• Climate change activist in Portland

• Insta influencer in Los Angeles

• Outdoorsy adventurer in Colorado

• Eclectic epicurean in Europe

• Simple suburbanite in the Midwest

While you probably don’t perfectly fit into one subculture, the leaders of each subculture uniquely define what a good and meaningful life looks like to them.

Once you’ve chosen your subculture, then it’s time to get work reaching the life goals of your subculture. Even though each subculture has different values, Obsessive Individualism shows up in surprisingly similar ways across our culture, causing you to:

• Orient your life around working more and more so that you can increase your productivity and get more done, even though you complain about work.

• Commit all of your time outside of work to filling your life with the most fun, relaxing, comfortable, or interesting experiences possible.

• Obsess over your grades, not because you enjoy learning the material or the subject, but because you see them as the key to a good life.

• Take picture after picture for social media, fussing over every detail of your appearance, all to make sure that you get one perfect picture to post online.

• Skip any event, party, or opportunity that doesn't promise to give you a good return of investment on your precious weekend time. 

• Seek out new thought-leaders, podcasts, and books in order to help you level up and achieve more in your life, whether emotionally, spiritually, or mentally. 

• Spend a fortune on your wedding since no expense should be spared on the most important day of your life.

• Create major life goals around things like traveling to all seven continents, seeing as many countries as possible, or visiting every national park. 

• Read countless parenting books, believing that if you can just choose the perfect system, you’ll raise well-adjusted kids who won’t need therapy as adults.

• Go through life at hyper-speed, always trying to fit more and more in, until you go on vacation and show people how good you are at relaxing. 

• Want to go to church more often, but your lifestyle just doesn't allow it. You’re either coming back from a weekend away, running errands around town, or taking your kids to a sports tournament.

What’s the theme of all of these common behaviors? They all revolve around the belief that I am at the center of the universe and that by obsessing over every detail of my personal kingdom I will create the flourishing I desire.

but what's the problem with these things?

As you read through the list above, you might be wondering what’s wrong with those things? After all, aren’t work, family, hobbies, vacations, and new experiences good things that we’re supposed to enjoy?

There’s just one problem. Now that the individual is the center of the universe, we have taken the good things of life and have made them ultimate things. We’ve taken God’s gifts to us and turned them into idols, something we treasure above all else.

While Obsessive Individualism doesn't break our secular culture's main commandment (you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t think you’re hurting anyone), it does break God's first commandment: you shall have no other gods before me.

We turn something into an idol when we value it more than God. That thing, whether it’s our family or job or goal, becomes our reason for living, and we look to it for meaning and purpose. Idols capture our hearts, promising that if we pursue them above everything else, they will give us self-fulfillment and security.

As an example of this, I once had a friend who became obsessed with skiing. She told me: “I’ve finally realized that skiing is my passion,” she said. “I feel most alive when I’m in the mountains cutting through fresh powder.” Skiing quickly became the ultimate thing in her life, causing her to book multiple trips to the Swiss Alps every year, before she eventually decided to move to Utah so that she could ski as much as possible. She has taken a good thing and is making it the center of her life.

Because of sin, our hearts are constantly searching for idols, good and virtuous things to elevate above God. As John Calvin famously said: “The human heart is a factory of idols….every one of us, from our mother's womb, is an expert in inventing idols."

Our secular society pursues its idols as a way to experience flourishing without getting involved with God. Idols promise you fulfillment, but anytime you elevate something above God, trouble will result. Sure, when your kingdom is going well you’ll feel great, happy, and buzzy. But then when you experience a setback or loss you’ll feel like a failure and will hate yourself.

While it's much easier to see other people's idols, we usually have no clue what our idols even are. Why? Because according to Richard Rohr:

"Idols, like cultural myths, are always disguised, if not totally invisible to the worshipper. If we could see their falsity, we would, of course, know they are not God. So false gods, idols, must always dress up as a cultural virtue like success, love of country, or hard work. These loyalties, either hidden or expressed, must be exposed for the gods that they are. Until this happens, there will be nothing really new and God's dream cannot show itself. 

So how do you know what your idols are? Jesus said that if you want to know what has captured your heart, look at what you treasure in your life. Ask yourself:

• What do you daydream about when you’re alone?

• What makes you say, "When I get ______, then I'll really be happy!"

• What are you always scheming to try to get?

• What makes you upset when it is threatened? 

If you think through these questions, you’ll find that there’s something besides God that your heart is worshiping and is looking to for flourishing.

how does this play itself out in society? 

The tricky part about Obsessive Individualism is that even though it dominates our lives, we all act as if we’re not self-obsessed. We learn to cover our self-interest by developing external motives to mask what our hearts are really after.

We hide behind performative morality, where we’re nice, friendly and act like we care about the lives of other people. We know how to tell people what they want to hear, while on the inside we’re constantly asking: how will this thing/person help me get where I want to go?

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While politicians are the easiest example of this mismatch between internal and external motives (“I’m only running for office because I want to serve you!”), we all struggle with it. John Stott described it like this:

"Few of us live one life and live it in the open! We are tempted to wear a different mask and play a different role according to each occasion. This is not reality but play-acting, which is the essence of hypocrisy. Some people weave round themselves such a tissue of lies that they can no longer tell which part of them is real and which is make-believe."

We obsess on every part of our public self-presentation, hoping that we can convince other people that we are nice, good, and only motivated by a deep love of humanity, instead of a fixation with self. But deep down:

• We talk about the value of community in our families, churches, and neighborhoods, but we pursue isolation and prioritize individual success.

• We complain about all of the problems in the world, while we increasingly use our free time to pursue things that we find easy and enjoyable.

• We fill our lives with optional activities and use them as an excuse for why we are too busy to do anything we don't want to do (i.e. doesn’t contribute to our kingdoms).

• We congratulate ourselves on how much we sacrifice for others, but yet we only help them out of a collective self-interest…we need them to look good.

We may think that we’re getting away with our internal/external divide, but God sees what is going on. As Proverbs 16 says: "All a person's ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord." Even when we do something he wants, we too easily fall prey to what T.S. Eliot calls the last temptation: "To do the right thing for the wrong reason."

This difference between a person’s internal and external motives was Jesus' major problem with the religious leaders of his day. He called them hypocrites, saying:

You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of impurity.  In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Outwardly, they followed every letter of the law, but inwardly, their hearts wanted nothing to do with God. Jesus described them in Matthew 15: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."

so why doesn't obsessive individualism lead to flourishing? 

While everyone secretly believes that Obsessive Individualism will get them the flourishing that they want so badly, over the long run, it always backfires. Why? Because Obsessive Individualism causes us to:

• Use people and things transactionally: We evaluate everything through the lens of cost-benefit, causing us to befriend and lavish attention on everyone who can help us, but exclude anyone who doesn’t promise to add value to our lives.

• Become dishonest: we find creative ways to lie, cheat, and manipulate other people in order to get what we want. We stretch the truth, tell half-truths, and exaggerate in order to get whatever we have set our hearts on.

• Become corrupt: we misuse institutional and political power to further our own interests rather than serving the common good.

• Struggle with exhaustion: we pack our lives full of more and more things in hopes of exceeding our society’s expectations until we wilt from exhaustion.

• Grow increasingly anxious: because the things we treasure are temporary and fragile, we are always worried that our personal kingdoms are going to fall apart.

• Erupt in anger when our idols are threatened: we are generally nice people as long as other people help us get our idols. But the moment they prevent us from getting something we treasure, we erupt in anger and rage at them.

While Obsessive Individualism tells us that obsessing over yourself is fine as long as you don’t hurt others, these behaviors are just a few examples of how making yourself the center of the universe causes all kinds of societal breakdown, whether in our families, communities, or institutions.

Self-obsession causes the fabric of our culture to disintegrate, not because anyone is trying to destroy society, but rather because no one cares about anything other than that which would help themselves. We only have time, energy, or resources for the people, places, and things that will help us win at life. Everyone else is forgotten.

what is the root problem?

It shouldn't be surprising when we try to flourish by following our own self-interests, and not God's interests, because this is how Adam and Eve introduced sin in the world. When they were tempted by Satan to eat the forbidden fruit they didn't ask, "What does God want me to do?" but rather, "What would be best for me?”

Why? Because Adam and Eve’s hearts were divided: while outwardly they acted like they valued their relationship with God, in their heart of hearts, they idolized their own self-interests more. Then, after they sinned, they tried to hide the shame they felt when their inner motives were exposed by covering themselves with fig leaves.

This is why Jesus taught: "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other." Ultimately, something has to have your ultimate allegiance, either your kingdom or God’s kingdom.

We all think we can hide this from God, but we can’t. Why? Because as the Bible says in 1st Samuel: "Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." He sees our mixed motives and knows that even though we look like there's nothing wrong with us, deep down, our lives are in rebellion against God: we want to flourish with ourselves as the center of the universe. 

As human beings, we all idolize our own selfish interests and our own personal kingdoms. God’s trying to invite us into the flourishing life of his kingdom, but we won’t accept his gracious offer; we’re too obsessed with our own personal kingdom to have time for God’s kingdom.

We’re like the guests that were invited to the wedding feast in Jesus’ Parable of the Banquet. We’d like to come, but we unfortunately can’t. We’re too busy with our own lives. And so the guests turn down the invite to this incredible feast to focus on their:

• Possessions: “I have bought a field, and must go and see it.”

• Work: “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must go examine them.”

• Relationships: “I have just married a wife, and therefore cannot come.”

So many people are like the seed planted among the thorns in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. They never formally reject God, but as they go through life their focus on Him gets choked out by the cares and riches and pleasure of life, causing them to never bear the fruit that creates a flourishing life.

This is a crucial problem for all of us. It’s not the "bad" things that keep us from God's kingdom, but rather the "good" things. We think we need more money and pleasure and possessions to flourish, so we chase them, but in doing so we lose our connection to God's kingdom and the true flourishing that he provides. 

part 2: Jesus’ approach to flourishing

In his sixth Beatitude, Jesus challenges our obsessive self-interestedness and introduces a radical approach to flourishing. According to Jesus, a flourishing life doesn’t come about by obsessing over your own kingdom, but rather by becoming pure in heart:

Flourishing are the pure in heart, because they shall see God. 

Like all of the Beatitudes, this one makes no sense. How will becoming pure in heart help us flourish? When most people hear pure in heart, they assume that Jesus is talking about some old-fashioned purity that’ll take all the fun out of life. We think of pure in heart the same way as H.L. Mencken described Puritanism, as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

But that's not what Jesus means by pure in heart. Instead, Jesus is telling us about his mission to win over our hearts and set us free from our self-obsession. And in a world that won’t believe in God without “proof,” he gives us the ultimate promise: the pure in heart will see God!

so what does Jesus mean by pure in heart? 

To understand Jesus' challenge to Obsessive Individualism, we first have to understand what he means by the phrase "pure in heart." When we use heart today, we generally use it to refer to our deepest desires and feelings (i.e. follow your heart).

But to Jesus, the heart isn’t just your emotions, but rather who you are in your inner depths, where your thoughts, feelings, desires, character and motivations emerge from. Paul Tripp says that the Bible sees your heart as the “control center of your personhood” that drives you and shapes how you live. Proverbs 4:23 tells us that everything you do flows out of your heart, the core of who you are.

So what then does Jesus mean by pure? While pure can mean clean, Jesus isn’t referring to moral cleanness here. He’s using pure to mean unmixed or undivided, the same way we use it to describe pure gold. Pure gold has nothing mixed into it, and even if it falls into the mud and gets dirty it will still be pure.

Taken together, Jesus is saying that the pure in heart have stopped obsessing over their own kingdoms and have an all-in devotion towards God and his kingdom. They live for God and refuse to elevate any good thing into an ultimate thing. John Stott described the pure in heart as:

Single-minded, free from the tyranny of the divided self….their very heart--including their thoughts and motives--is pure, unmixed with anything devious, ulterior, or base.

To the pure in heart, pursuing God isn’t just one of their desires, but rather their core desire that impacts every other part of their life. They seek to please God in whatever they do, even if it doesn’t make them popular or wealthy or powerful.

The key question for the pure in heart is no longer, “What can I get out of this?” but rather, “What would it look like to serve and honor God here?” This means that they treat everyone the same, regardless of whether someone can help them or not.

To be pure in heart is to put aside your idols and worship God above all else, serving him with your whole life and trusting him to provide what you need to flourish. Jesus is telling us: the flourishing life occurs when your heart is undivided and completely set on God.

so how do you become pure in heart? 

In our culture, both religious and secular people try to become a better person by “doing the work” and cleaning their lives up through moral effort. We try to change our lives through behavior modification, using external pressure and willpower.

But no matter how hard you try, you can't purify your heart by changing your external behavior. No amount of self-development, self-meditation, or self-flagellation will affect wants going on in your heart. You may be able to suppress the idolatrous desires of your heart for a while, but the pressure will build and they will eventually explode into your life.

This is why Jesus isn’t after moral reformation, but rather inner transformation. Jesus didn’t come to earth to help us get our lives together through external efforts, but rather came to spiritually transform our lives from the inside-out. As C.S. Lewis wrote:

God is not out to make nicer people, but new people.

Nice people think that being a Christian is all about trying your best to obey all of Jesus' teachings that you agree with. But those who are following Jesus understand the sinfulness of their hearts and, in order to be pure in heart, they need a completely new heart.

So how do you become pure in heart? By following God as you:

1. Confess your sin: the first step to having a pure heart is admitting that you have an impure heart. Instead of repressing your impurities, you have to confess them to God and admit that your heart is chasing after everything but God. First John 1 says: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 

   You’ll never flourish until you admit that you have made your own kingdom the most important thing in your life and confess it to God.

2. Ask God for a new heart: When David had sinned against God by murdering Uriah and sleeping with Bathsheba, he asked God to work in him: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 

   David didn't ask for a podcast to explain to him how his childhood trauma caused him to sin, or a book to help him not make this mistake again. Instead, he went straight to God and cried out for help.

3. Let God work: In order to have a pure heart, you have to be spiritually regenerated by God. The Holy Spirit has to work in your heart so that your spiritually dead heart is made alive through Christ. God says in Ezekiel 36: I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 

   Through Christ, we are giving a new nature. We become dead to sin and alive to Christ.

1. Pursue purity: We aren't supposed to just sit back and watch God work, but we are to partner in this purification process as we pursue him and obey his commands. In the very next verse in Ezekiel, God says: I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 

   In Philippians 4, Paul shows us what this pursuit of purity looks like: "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

As we follow this process, confessing our sin and letting the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit work to revive and purify our hearts, we will be enabled to "love the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind."

why do the pure in heart flourish? 

Jesus says that the pure in heart flourish, not because they’ve created a giant kingdom on their own, but rather because as a result of life in God’s kingdom, they will see God.

Why do the pure in heart see God while no one else does? Because everyone else is too focused on their own kingdom to ever look for him. As C.S. Lewis wrote, "It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to."

So what does it mean to see God? Seeing God is both the most exciting and terrifying idea in human history. It's something that every human being since Adam and Eve has longed for: to be in the presence of the God of the universe and to experience a relationship with him. It's what God's people have been waiting for since the Old Testament, when Aaron blessed them by saying:

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."

But yet the idea of seeing God is terrifying. How can we, those with impure hearts, ever see God? None of us are able to perfectly love God with all of our hearts, the requirement for being in God’s presence.

Psalm 24 tells us how:

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.

Only someone with clean hands and a pure heart can stand in God’s presence. While Psalm 24 is in the Old Testament, it’s pointing us to Jesus, the only person to ever perfectly obey these commands. He lived a pure life and had his heart set on God and his kingdom his entire life.

When he died, he took on the impurity of our hearts and gave us the purity of his heart, so that we could be ushered into God’s presence, as shown through the temple curtain being torn into two. Unlike Jesus, your idols will never idol for you, but rather will insist that you die for them.

Then, when you are born again through faith in Jesus, you’ll no longer hide from God like Adam and Eve, but will relish the opportunity to be in God’s presence. You’ll no longer be ashamed of your internal life, because you know that even though God knows everything about you, he still loves you through and through.

Right now, the pure in heart see God through the eyes of faith; we see him work, providing, and guiding us through life. But this is just a small taste of what life will be like in the new heavens and new earth, where we will live in God’s presence for eternity. John describes it this way in Revelation 4:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb….no longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they’ll reign forever and ever.

This is the ultimate picture of human flourishing. Face to face with the God of the universe in a perfect paradise, no longer under the curse of sin!

so why does this lead to flourishing?

But seeing God doesn't only result in a future flourishing. As we see God work in our lives and look forward to seeing him for eternity, a most important thing happens: what you worship changes, which influences every part of your life.

Seeing God frees you from tiny lives of self-interest, self-obsession, and self-worship, and reorients your life from obsessing over your personal kingdom to instead giving your life to him and his kingdom.

As the Holy Spirit works in your heart, skimming off the impurities and purifying your motives, your life will begin to change from the inside-out in ways that you could never expect. You will:

• Stop using people and start serving them, because since they are made in God’s image, they have infinite and eternal value.

• Spend time with all kinds of people, even if they don’t help you, because you love finding way to encourage their thriving.

• Stop hoarding your time, energy, and resources and start giving them away because they are all gifts from God.

• Be set free from worry, anxiety, and a constant busyness because you can now trust God to give you exactly what you need.

• Be set free from being addicted to work, because your life is no longer a cosmic quest to accumulate treasure on earth but rather treasure in heaven.

The pure in heart realize that they are not their own, but rather have been bought with a price. Because of that, they aren’t free to do whatever they want with their lives, but rather are committed to setting their hearts completely on God and pursuing his will.

As Christians repent from their own kingdoms and use their lives to worship God and serve His kingdom, it creates a servant-hearted, others-centered society where people love their neighbor and contribute to the flourishing of all.

where do we get the power to be set free from our own kingdoms?

If you want to be set free from your own kingdom you have to let your heart be melted by what Jesus has done for you. Philippians 2 tells us:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

When Jesus came to earth to rescue you from a life of self-worship and self-obsession, he didn't do it because it was going to be easy or fun or help him live his best life, but rather because he loved us more than he loved himself. 

And so when we see how Jesus emptied himself for our benefit, it should melt our hearts and see how we are called to do the same for others: 

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 

We'll never flourish to the degree God intended until we recognize that our lives shouldn't revolve around our dreams, agenda, and desires, but rather God's will for our lives. When we do this, we're set free from a role we can't play and instead can use our lives the way we were meant to: to live face to face with the God of the universe.

1

I use “personal kingdom” as a general term for all of the things that you have in life, including your abilities, your career, your relationships, your resources, your possessions, etc. We all have a personal kingdom that we have control over and influence in.

2

Descartes wasn’t an atheist, but rather a French Catholic. I think it would be hard for him to understand how much his one idea had led to so much cultural change in our current day.

3

While I want to be charitable, so many people love to announce how much they care about some topic or group or society in general, but then there is never any action taken towards that. Jesus made it clear: if you want to know what’s going on inside a person, don’t listen to what they say, watch to see what fruit they bear.

beatitude #5: how do you create social change?

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“To err is human, to forgive divine.” — Alexander Pope

There’s one question that dominates our cultural conversation right now: how do you create social change? As we look around and see all of our society’s problems, whether it’s poverty, homelessness, racism, corruption, injustice, or emotional distress, we yearn for change, but yet no one knows how to create it.

Because of this, politicians promise every election cycle that major social change is right around the corner. But yet our social problems continue, year after year, generation after generation, as we grasp around for any solution.

There are two ways that we can try to create social change; either by following the secular approach of Jesus’ approach. While our secular society tells us that social change comes through social judgment, Jesus, in his fifth Beatitude, gives us a unique and puzzling way to create social change: through social mercy.

If we ever want to experience the flourishing life of God’s kingdom we have to understand how Jesus’ approach to social change differs so greatly from the secular approach to social change.

part 1: the secular approach to social change

The secular approach to flourishing believes that the best way to create social change is through social judgment. Our society believes that by pursuing social judgment, they’ll change our culture and create a society that flourishes. So they follow this path for social change:

Define a social ideal —> Pursue social judgment —> Create social flourishing. 

Our society believes that if we can do these things, it will lead to the most flourishing society the world has ever seen! So how does this work in real life?

the first step towards social change: choose a social ideal

The first step towards secular social change is choosing your social ideal, an imagined idea of what the perfect society would look like. Social ideals are abstract targets that give us a destination that we can work towards as a society.

Since God no longer has a voice in our secular culture, it's now up to us to define the ideal conditions that’ll cause society to flourish. There are currently two secular ideals that have captured our cultural imagination. They are: 

• The conservative ideal of social liberty: Most conservatives are drawn to a social ideal of liberty, which promises that if we can keep taxes low, reduce the size of the government, cut regulations, and create equal opportunities for everyone, then society will flourish.

• The progressive ideal of social justice: Most progressives are drawn to the social ideal of justice, which promises that if we can raise taxes, enlarge our government, increase regulations, redistribute wealth from the rich to the marginalized, and create equal outcomes for everyone, then society will flourish.

  1

Each group tells itself that if it can reach its social ideal, then society will thrive.  But social ideals never stay abstract for long. They all eventually develop into an ideology, a framework of social rules that allow us to make sense of the world. Think of it like this: if an ideal is your group's goal for society, then an ideology is your group's social rules that you believe will help you reach that goal.

Ideologies always spring up around social ideals because groups have to apply their ideals to everyday life. They need a moral framework by which to evaluate things as good or bad, whether it's where you shop, what brands you buy, how you post on social media, or most importantly, where you vote. Ideologies allow us to subconsciously separate the world into two groups, labeling some thoughts, beliefs, and actions as good, while labeling others as bad.

2

Why is this function of ideologies so important? Because they give us an ability to identify the “enemy,” the people who are keeping us from flourishing. The other side is not just bad, but evil, and is "trying to destroy our country" by secretly working to support communism, fascism, or some other -ism of the day. "If we could only get rid of them," each side thinks, "Then we will usher in a golden age of social flourishing."

We then blame the other side for our societal problems, telling anyone who will listen, “The reason we’re not flourishing is because of them!" Most people are not even aware that they're following an ideology, but these subconscious rule systems become our self-created standard for what will create a flourishing society.

the second step towards social change: social judgment

Once you've chosen a social ideal and adopted its ideology, the next step towards secular social change comes through social judgment: you need to tell others where they're wrong and how they need to change. If you’re ever going to get people to change, society says, you need to confront their evil actions and tell them how much they’re messing things up!

To do this, you have to first believe that you're qualified to be society's judge. So, we start by using our ideologies to declare our lives and choices morally superior. How? By:

• Emphasizing rules we find easy to obey.

• Comparing our perfect, abstract intentions against their messy, real-life actions.

• Creating ways to publicly perform our “goodness.”

• Obsessing over our side’s ideals while ignoring our side’s flaws.

• Surround ourselves with like-minded people who assure us of our goodness.

This self-judgment is a sham, but nobody cares because it gives us the self-righteousness we need to judge others and tell them where they have to change.

Now, armed with our sense of moral superiority and the belief that we're good people, we judge everyone around us and tell them whenever they break our social rules. Each side fixates on judging the other, constantly pointing out the enemy’s mistakes, flaws, and sins. Our judgments are bolstered through our use of stereotypes, straw man arguments, misrepresentations, and dehumanizing terms that paint the other side as filled with evil intent.

Why is our society so judgmental? Because it makes us feel like we are working to change society for the better. Eugene Peterson said:

Being critical and condemnatory feels moral. You see an evil and you take a stand. There's something adrenaline-releasing. You're on the right side and you're doing something about the problems.

We naively believe that if we can judge everyone and let them know that they’re evil, then they’ll see their faults, admit that they're wrong, and quickly change their thinking, beliefs, and behaviors to what we want.

But when we use social judgment to try to create social change, we soon find out that this approach only causes other people to become even more entrenched in their positions. They see your judgment of them as proof of how evil you are…after all, only evil people would ever disagree and attack good people like them!

the third step towards social change: social punishment

Since judging others doesn’t lead to social change, we then turn to the last step of the secular approach towards social change: we punish the other side for their sins. We punish others for two main reasons:

1. To express our anger and make them pay for all of the hurt they've caused.

2. To bully others into adopting our beliefs and view of the world. 

While social punishment can take all kinds of forms, we usually use shame, ridicule, exclusion, canceling, de-platforming, discrimination, slander, black lists, and silent treatment to make them feel the full weight of our social judgment against them. We withhold social belonging, acceptance, and approval, believing that we can hurt them so badly that they will have no choice but to change.

So we rain down condemnation on other people, hoping that we can pressure them into changing their opinion. We punish them over and over, in every way possible, whether it’s through social media, personal interactions, or grumbling to our friends. And if they don’t change, we try to punish them to extinction, feeling completely justified in trying to destroy their lives, whether metaphorically or in reality. These social punishments send a chilling message to society: either you fall in line with my rules, or you’ll be next.

Each side believes that the stakes are too high to back down, much less forgive. As the good people of society, it's our moral obligation to punish evil whenever we see it. Sure, our forms of punishment make us pretty nasty, too, but the ends justify the means: if we don't destroy them, they are going to continue to destroy our society! Sure, we’d rather not, but they are so evil the only way to ensure a flourishing future is to destroy them socially, financially, and politically.

Even if we don't explicitly punish others ourselves, we support our cultural leaders as they do our dirty work for us. Whether it’s a politician, media figure, or social media star, people who punish the other side for their social sins gain incredible amounts of power, popularity, and income. We root for their destruction and gloat in the other side’s mistakes, using their faults and flaws to prove how evil they are.

Why do we refuse to forgive? Because we’re perfect, unlike the evil other side. As Miroslav Volf wrote:

Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners.

And so each side in our secular society punishes the other, believing that this will create the social change needed to bring about a flourishing society.

what are the results of the secular approach to change?

Despite our secular society's confidence in its ability to create social change, its approach never creates a flourishing society. Why? Because social judgment doesn't create social flourishing, but rather social destruction, which ends up creating social breakdown.

While our society believes that: 

Social ideal —> Social judg./punishment —> Social change —> Social flourishing

In reality, what happens is: 

Social ideology —> Social judg./punishment —> Social destruction —> Social breakdown. 

The secular approach to flourishing doesn't change people, but rather destroys them, causing society to break down even more. This happens through: 

1. Destroyed relationships: when we judge and punish others, we inflict all kinds of damage on each other, destroying the bonds that society needs to flourish. We become angry, bitter, and frustrated with our parents, neighbors, and peers, often choosing to end relationships rather than work through differences. This creates a world filled with pain, distrust, and loneliness.

2. Even more entrenched ideological positions: Being criticized, attacked, or punished doesn’t cause people to rethink their positions, but rather fuels them to become even more entrenched against the attacks of the other side.

3. Less forgiveness: Once the other side has been found guilty, punishment is the only acceptable response. And since we assume the worst about the person’s motives and intent, you have to pursue the maximum punishment possible for every social crime.

4. Escalating cycles of social violence: social judgment and punishment create cycles of violence: when each side feels attacked, they respond back from their pain and try to repay the other side for the hurt they've received. This causes society to fall into an escalating cycle of social violence and destruction.

5. Increased apathy: because all of our problems are caused by the other side, we grow to believe that we can't do anything to help fix the situation. This creates a cultural apathy where everyone waits for the "bad" people to change, while refusing to help with the hard and messy task of tackling our society's problems. 

The secular approach might be able to use social pressure to change short term social norms, but it never leads to social flourishing. It creates too much anger, resentment, and bitterness, causing society to swing back and forth like a pendulum based on the whims of each new generation. 

But since our secular culture has no alternative, we double-down on this approach, believing that the reason we aren't flourishing yet is because we haven't punished the other side enough!

This, however, only leads to more social breakdown, and eventually, as people collect more and more wounds, they lose hope that the world will ever change. John Mayer's song, Waiting on the World to Change, sums up this attitude perfectly:

Now we see everything that's going wrong with the world and those who lead it. We just feel like we don't have the means to rise above and beat it. So we keep waiting, waiting on the world to change. 

After rage, anger, and punishment, society reaches its last emotion: despair…when is anything ever going to change? And since nothing we do seems to help, we give up on trying to help our society and go back to building our own personal kingdoms. 

why doesn’t the secular approach to social change work?

So why doesn’t the secular approach to social change lead to the kind of social flourishing that everyone hopes it will? There are three main reasons that it doesn’t work.

The first reason is because every ideology is off. Since all of our ideologies are created by broken people and not a perfect God, they don't tell an accurate story of the world. Because we are blind to our own problems and errors, we adjust our ideologies to ignore or misinterpret any evidence we don't like, while overemphasizing all of the evidence that supports our interpretation of the world (we're good, they're bad). This causes every ideology to be a half truth, which is the most dangerous kind of life. Some of it is true, but due to its distortion of reality it should never be used as the standard by which we judge others. 

The second reason is because none of us are competent to judge others. Because every person is corrupted by bias, favoritism, and self-deception, we're all unjust in our judgments. We over-punish the people we blame and under-punish the people we like. None of us can live up to our social ideals, causing our social change projects to collapse as each side points out the moral failings of the other. And since we don't know the hearts, motives, and circumstances of others, we misjudge others, which only creates more injustice, not less. This means that we're all hypocritical judges: we hold people around us up to standards that we can't keep ourselves.

The third reason is because no one is actually trying to change society: Despite what we tell ourselves, the purpose of the secular approach isn't to change society, but rather to help us feel morally superior to others. We don't use social judgment because it's effective at creating social change, but rather because it helps to convince ourselves that we are good people. Deep down, we're all anxious about our moral goodness, so we use ideologies to prove to ourselves that we're okay. That’s why we love to complain about the world from a distance: it allows us to feel like we are doing something without ever having to get involved in the moral messiness of life.

so what's the root problem? 

The root problem of the secular approach to social change is that none of us can admit that we're sinful human beings who contribute to the brokenness of the world. Why does this happen? Because we're all self-deceived by our sin. As David states in Psalm 19: “Who can discern their own errors? Forgive me my hidden faults.”

Sin blinds us to the fact that we all have hidden faults that we can’t see and motivates us to blame others for them, all in an attempt to maintain our façade of self-righteousness. As D.A. Carson writes: The sinner who won’t face up to his sin hates all other sinners.

But to think that we are sinless is to live in self-deception. In 1 John 1 states, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Sin affects all of us, not only in the thoughts, beliefs, and actions that it causes us to commit, but also the way that it deceives us from seeing that we’re sinful.

This problem isn't new, though, and goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they became self-deceived by their sin. And so when confronted by God, Adam, rather than admitting that he ate the fruit, blamed both God and Eve. He said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” And Eve, no doubt feeling the heat of Adam’s attack, passed the blame for her sin onto Satan: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

By acting like this, Adam and Eve show us a fundamental characteristic of our sinful heart: we all try to deal with our sin by judging other people and pointing out their sin. Instead of admitting their sin, they rejected God, took on his role as judge, and started blaming everyone but themselves.

Our society assumes that if we can get rid of God and Christianity we'll become more tolerant and less judgmental, but in reality, as Baylor professor Alan Jacobs says, it's the exact opposite: 

When a society rejects the Christian account of who we are, it doesn’t become less moralistic but far more so, because it retains an inchoate sense of justice but has no means of offering and receiving forgiveness. The great moral crisis of our time is not, as many of my fellow Christians believe, sexual licentiousness, but rather vindictiveness. Social media serve as crack for moralists: there’s no high like the high you get from punishing malefactors.

While trying to use social judgment to create social change might feel good, the end result isn't social flourishing, but rather social destruction.

part 2: Jesus’ approach to social change

Through his fifth Beatitude, Jesus challenges everything about the secular approach to social change. According to Jesus, a flourishing society doesn't happen through social judgment but rather through social mercy. That's the key point of his fifth Beatitude:

Flourishing are the merciful, because they shall be shown mercy. 

A flourishing society isn't the result of an obsession with judging and punishing "evil" people, but rather happens when we show mercy to each other. 

But this idea is radical, and both secular and religious people hate it! How are you ever going to change society by being merciful? We think showing mercy will allow evil to continue unchecked and will cause injustice to grow. And so we reject Jesus' approach to social change, confident mercy would never work in a society as broken as ours. 

But Jesus wasn't naive. He lived in a cruel world, surrounded by even more evil and injustice than we have today. Yet he still taught his followers the path to flourishing is found in showing mercy to one another.

so what does Jesus mean by being merciful?

To understand how being merciful leads to flourishing, we first have to understand what Jesus meant by mercy. Mercy, as understood in the Bible, can be defined as: showing compassion to hurting people. When Jesus calls us to be merciful, he's telling us to show compassion, empathy, and concern to people who are suffering from the misery of sin. 

Mercy is more than just being nice to people or feeling bad for those who have problems, but rather is entering into the pain, hurt, and struggle of those suffering from the effects of sin. As Clarence Jordan wrote:

Mercy is not merely pitching a coin to a beggar, but rather a whole attitude towards life. By the 'merciful' Jesus means those who have an attitude of compassion toward all people that they want to share gladly all that they have with one another and the world.

Jesus calls us not to condemn others, but rather to show compassion to them, whether they are suffering from the spiritual, emotional, physical or economic effects of sin.

so what does mercy actually look like?

The problem with a concept like mercy, though, is that we always redefine it to minimize its requirements on us. To break through this human tendency, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. 

In this parable, a Samaritan man came upon a Jewish man who had been robbed, beat up, and left for dead. Rather than ignoring the dying man, like a Jewish priest and Levite had previously done, the Samaritan risked his life by stopping to bind up his wounds, put him on his donkey, and took him to the local inn, where he offered to pay for the injured man’s care until he was healed.

This parable destroys our intellectual definitions of mercy and causes us to see what biblical mercy actually looks like. It is:

• Compassion in action: Mercy isn't just an ideal or feeling, but is a tangible action. Mercy isn't an abstract desire, but rather love in action to help lessen their suffering from sin. 

• Generous compassion: Mercy is costly love, and when you show it to others it will require you to be generous with your time, money, and life.

• Compassion towards all, even the people you don't like: Mercy isn't just compassion towards people that you like, but rather to everyone, even your enemies. As pastor Derwin Gray put it, "Being a merciful person means that you cross ethnic, cultural, and religious barriers to help hurting people."

No doubt the priest and the Levite had strong opinions about what was wrong with society and how to fix things, but yet when they were given a chance to actually help someone in need, they avoided it. 

The Samaritan man, however, didn't blame the injured man for messing up his life or tweet out how the politicians in Jerusalem needed to fix this problem. Instead, he showed great compassion towards this hurt man. 

why is it so hard to be merciful? 

While everyone would approve of the Good Samaritan’s actions, we all struggle to show mercy to other people, much less believe that mercy is the way to create social change. So often, when we see sin ravaging our society, we're so focused on destroying our enemies that we never show compassion towards those whose lives are being wrecked by sin. So why is the desire to judge others, and not show mercy, the default mode of our hearts?

1. We're all self-righteous: The main reason we're not merciful is because we don't think we need mercy. We believe in our own moral superiority, which makes us feel comfortable holding others to our standards and punishing them when they fall short. "If I can be perfect, or at least pretty close," we all think, "Then I have the right to expect perfection from everyone else." This is especially true when we're young, since we assume we’ll do everything perfectly when we’re older and in charge.

2. We don't believe in a cosmic Judgment Day: In an attempt to be more loving and kind, our secular society (and increasingly the church) has gotten rid of the idea that God is a divine judge who will one day judge the world. While it sounds so open-minded to not believe in a day of divine judgment, in reality, this has caused our society to turn every day into our own personal judgment day! If you don't believe that there's a God who will someday hold people accountable for their sin, then you have to act as God, judging and punishing everything yourself, out of fear that if you don’t, evil will go unpunished. 

3. We don't feel like being merciful gets things done: We resist showing mercy to others, especially our ideological enemies, because it doesn't feel like we're getting anything done. We're all impatient with God's methods and believe that we don't have time to show mercy. "Things need to change now!" we say to ourselves. So we use the secular approach to social change, thinking it will be a shortcut to a flourishing society. 

Because of these reasons, we all naturally resist the idea of showing mercy to others.

so how do we become merciful?

But if we are to ever follow this Beatitude and be merciful, we have to see how Jesus challenges our natural way of approaching the world. To become merciful, we need to:

1. Understand our own need for mercy: You'll never show mercy to others until you realize your own need for mercy. To do that, you have to recognize that there's a standard, God's law, that's about your ideological standard. While you might be able to finesse your ideology to make yourself look good, when you compare yourself to God's law your self-righteousness will disintegrate. We're all sinners who have rebelled against God and are wreaking havoc on the world around us. 

   As the Holy Spirit works in our hearts he breaks down our self-deception and helps us understand our need for God's mercy. Tim Keller says that to Jesus "the only distinction in humanity that matters is not the good and the bad, but rather the proud and the humble.” When we recognize that there is no one good, then we can repent of our pride and humbly accept God’s mercy towards us.

2. Trust that God will judge the world with perfect justice: Having recognized our brokenness and need for God's mercy, we have to then admit that only God is qualified to judge other people. We're not. Psalm 98 says that God will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity: perfect fairness. 

   We can be merciful when we trust that God is a just judge who will deal fairly with all human beings. As Hebrews 9 tells us: "Every person is destined to die, and after that to face judgment." Our job isn't to judge the world now, but rather to show mercy to those around us and to help them prepare for God's future judgment. This is the same role that Jesus took on earth, who said in John 3: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

3. Rest in God’s plan for the world: once we recognize our need for mercy and our lack of ability to judge the world, we still have to grow in our ability to trust God’s plan for the world. So often we see how things are going in society, how sinful people succeed and righteous people suffer, and we say, “How is this fair God? Are you asleep up there?”

   We’re tired of waiting for God to get his act together, so we step in, take control, and start judging and punishing everyone around us. But when we do this, it shows that we don’t understand God’s heart. The Apostle Peter reminds us:

   With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.

   When we become merciful when we stop trying to fit God into our plan and instead trust that he will judge evil when the time is right.

When we recognize our sinfulness and our need for mercy, it allows us to let go of our delusions that we’re supposed to judge the world, and rather sets us free to serve it with great compassion.

so why do the merciful flourish?

Jesus says that the merciful flourish not because they create good karma or meet God's standard, but rather "because they shall be shown mercy." This Beatitude can be confusing at first. Is Jesus saying that we have to show mercy in order to get God's mercy?

We have to remember, though, that the Beatitudes aren't if/then statements (if you do this then you'll flourish), but rather an invitation to participate in the flourishing life of God's kingdom. The merciful flourish, not because the mercy they show impresses God, but rather because it demonstrates that they understand their need for God's mercy. 

This is the point that Jesus was trying to get across in the parable of the unmerciful servant. When the servant refused to forgive the other man for a small debt, even after he'd been forgiven a huge debt by his master, he showed his master that he didn't think he actually needed mercy. The servant wasn't sorrowful for his debt and he hadn't been moved or changed by the great mercy of his master. 

So many people are like the unmerciful servant: they will use God for forgiveness when they do something really bad, but when they refuse to show mercy to the people around them, it demonstrates that they don't actually believe they need God's forgiveness. As Reinhold Niebuhr wrote:

Forgiveness is possible only to those who know themselves to be sinners. Moral idealists never forgive their foes. They are too secure in their own virtue to do that. Men forgive their foes only when they feel themselves to be standing under God with them, and feel the divine scrutiny all ‘our righteousness is as filthy rags.’

The merciful flourish because they understand their need for mercy from God, which causes them to repent of their sins, ask for his forgiveness, and experience the his new life. First Peter 1 tells us:

According to God’s great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The merciful flourish because God has forgiven them of their sins and will show them mercy when Jesus comes again at the end of time to judge the world. The merciful receive God's mercy and are invited into God's new heavens and new earth for an eternity of flourishing. 

But how can God be both merciful towards us and just towards sin? Because of the cross. God can be a God of both mercy and justice only because Jesus took the punishment for our sin on the cross. He satisfied God’s perfect justice, so that we can receive God’s never-ending mercy. As Psalm 103 says:

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. 

As we enter society as people who have been saved by Jesus' death and resurrection, we are able to balance God's call to justice with his merciful provision of a savior.

so how do the merciful flourish now?

But the merciful don’t just flourish in the future, their merciful lives create flourishing in the here and now! How? Because merciful people: 

1. Help to solve the problems of a hurting world: Merciful people don't just complain about everyone else, but instead use their lives to address the pain and suffering of sin. They run towards the problems of the world, since they know that the only reason they don't struggle with the same sins is because of God's grace, not any moral goodness of their own. 

   They give up their aloof apathy because they recognize they are a part of the problems in our society. They see how their brokenness has contributed to the hurt, pain, and suffering of the world, and become energized by God's mercy towards them to extend costly love to others. 

2. Create the space to work through our sin: Because merciful people understand their own need for mercy, they don't look down on other people in order to judge and punish them, but rather seek to show mercy to them so that they can introduce them to God's forgiveness. When we see that we’re not going to be judged and punished by the other person, we finally feel safe enough to admit that we are sinful, and that we contribute to the problems of our community, neighborhood, and culture.

   Mercy melts our hearts and lets us be honest, with both ourselves and others, about our true condition. This doesn’t happen overnight, but with time, God uses mercy to change hearts and give people the space they need to repent of their sin, which is what changes society. Mercy then allows us to show respect, compassion, and love even to people who disagree with us so that we can work together towards a greater good.

Jesus' approach to social change doesn't seek to punish people for their past sins, but rather uses mercy to introduce them to their need to repent for their sin. What makes social mercy so different from  social judgment, is that it allows for sin to be dealt with and worked through, instead of covered up and hidden. 

Secular approach: social judgment —> social punishing —> social breakdown

Jesus' approach: social mercy —> social repentance —> social flourishing

It’s only when we become merciful people that we can switch from the secular approach to social change to Jesus’ approach.

but is mercy anti-justice?

But there’s one last question we have to ask: doesn’t being merciful just allow the status quo of society to continue unchallenged? If we fall into that trap, it’s because we misunderstand God’s mercy.

Justice and mercy are not an either/or situation with God. You don't have to either pursue justice or mercy, but rather are to work towards justice in a merciful manner, not punishing others for what they have done in the past, yet not compromising on boundaries and enabling sin in the future. 

We see this in Micah 6:8, a popular Bible verse at the moment:

And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

So many people are so focused on doing justice, that they overlook the second two commands. They skip right over “love mercy” and “walk humbly” and instead unconsciously interpret this verse if it’s saying, “Do justice, love judgment, and walk proudly, because I know what’s right.”

But that's not what the verse says! Micah gives us a logic to pursue justice: We are to

Walk humbly —> love mercy —> do justice

God wants us to pursue justice, yes, but only through mercy and walking humbly with him. We are not to judge others as we seek justice, but rather are to respond to the effects of sin in their life with a deep and compassionate mercy. 

Mercy then is not sufficient for a just society, but it is necessary. Justice is something we must do, but only when we have cultivated a humble and merciful spirit. Mercy is not anti-justice, but rather anti-judgment. While there are times to be angry at sin and the injustice it creates, we are always to respond in mercy, not judgment. As Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as your heavenly Father is merciful.”

so where do we get the power to be merciful? 

If you try to force yourself to show mercy to other people you won't be able to do it. Your tendency to compare them to your ideology will always win out in the long run. You’ll never be able to rationalize your way into costly compassion for the hurting and sinful of society.

Instead, the only way to develop a merciful heart is to see the mercy that motivated Jesus to come to this earth and rescue you. Jesus didn't have to do anything to help us; he was under no obligation to leave heaven, much less die on the cross. Yet Jesus willingly did these things because he loved us so much. Matthew 9 says:

When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

God saw the mess we had made of the world in our sin, and despite our rejection of him, chose to become a man and die on the cross to rescue us from ourselves. And on the cross, during the greatest injustice in the history of the world, Jesus didn’t judge and punish us, but rather said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Because of Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness towards us, we are called to do the same, to run towards the brokenness of the world, not to save ourselves, but to introduce everyone to the love, compassion, and flourishing life that’s only found in God.

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Part of the tension between these two social ideals is that both are including in the original vision for the United States. We see this in the American Pledge of Allegiance, which ends with the phrase “With liberty and justice for all.” Because of this, both groups create a mythological “origin story” around their social ideal, that the United States was founded specifically to ensure that their ideal would be the main goal of the country.

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If you want to see how ideologies actually work, think about two popular signs: “Freedom isn’t free” and “Refugees are welcome here.” At face value, these statements seem bland and non-controversial. But in our current ideological clash, depending on which community you live in, some people see one sign as evil and the other as good, while people in another community will have the exact opposite opinions.

beatitude #4: what’s driving your life?

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 "To be human is to be on the move, pursuing something, after something." — James K.A. Smith

“For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” — Ps. 107:9

In his fourth Beatitude, Jesus challenges you to think about what’s driving your life? At your core, what do you really desire? We live in a culture that tells us that being driven by personal success is the best path to flourishing. If you give everything you have towards succeeding in life, then you’ll be able to live a satisfying and enjoyable life.

But Jesus completely disagrees with this approach. Instead, he teaches that:

Flourishing are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness because they shall be filled.

At the core of the tension between these two approaches, Jesus wants you to reflect on the questions: deep down, what’s driving your life?

the secular approach to flourishing

Every human being is driven by something. We have one fundamental purpose that gives us an overarching purpose that drives our lives. In his book, You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith said:

To be human is to be on a quest. To live is to be embarked on a kind of unconscious journey toward the destination of your dreams. 

To be human is to be animated and oriented by some vision of the good life, some picture of what we think counts as “flourishing.” And we want that. We crave it. We desire it.

We’re all driven by some desire which acts as the main goal of our life. This desire always promises that if we can fulfill it, then we’ll be living the good life. You don’t get to choose whether your life is driven by an all-consuming desire, you only get to decide what it’s going to be.

In our secular culture, the most common animating and orienting desire in life is personal success. We are told that if we want to flourish, we have to be driven by the absolute pursuit of success and achievement. It has to become the main drive in our lives. We grow up learning that:

Flourishing are those who are driven by personal success because they will have it all!

And so our lives revolve around a deep desire for individual success. If we can just become successful, we think, then we’ll be able to create a life where we have everything we could ever want. Our recipe for flourishing is:

Pursue success above everything else —> become successful —> get the good life!

This creates a culture where our success becomes the most important thing in our lives. We live self-preoccupied lives spent chasing our self-interests, hopeful that we can achieve enough to flourish.

In our hyper-individualistic culture, the goal is personal, not communal, success. Everything comes secondary to our ability to succeed. Sure, we might say we want community, relationships, and commitment, but when the pencil hits the SAT booklet, our ability to achieve is what matters most.

so what is success?

While success can mean different things to different people, in our culture young people see success as consisting of three things:

1. Affluence: success means having abundant wealth, giving you the ability to spend it freely on whatever you want. The goal is to have so much extra money you can spoil yourself and be able to fulfill your idea of the good life.

2. Credentials: success also includes having the right background, achievements, and pedigree. These serve as credentials and are evidence of your status and authority. Your credentials prove that you followed the path that your community values most: you went to the right school, won at the right competitions, chose the right career, got married and had kids at the right time, and are associated with the right institutions.

3. Prestige: to be successful, you also need to become prominent in the exclusive circles of life. You need to be admired, esteemed, and well-respected, developing a reputation of being valued by the other influential people in your community.

These three aspects of success may sound abstract, but the pursuit of them drives so much of our lives, from the moment we get our first school report to where we choose to retire to. We become ambitious, hopeful that we’ll reach our dreams and become a high-achiever in everything we do.

This cultural view of success sweeps into our lives as an unseen current, drawing us into its power as it becomes the captivating vision of our lives. Every community has a localized definition of what it means to be affluent, credentialed, and prestigious, and pushes us to fit its narrative.

• If you live in the Midwest or South, your view of success probably centers more around marriage, family, and equipping your children to succeed. You care about work, but because it allows you to buy a big house in a safe suburb with great schools.

• If you live on the East Coast or West Coast, your view of success probably centers more around your career. You care about marriage and children, as long as they don’t get in the way of building a successful career.

Whichever cultural narrative you have been shaped by, we all live our lives pursuing a vision of what it means to be affluent, credentialed, and prestigious.

so how do you become successful?

One thing that has made the pursuit of success so important in our lives is that we’ve changed how we get it. Historically, success was something passed down from previous generations. If your parents were poor, you probably would be as well.

But since the 1950s this has changed, with the idea, at least, of greater mobility, it’s now up to each new generation to create their success, and if possible, expand on what their parents’ achieved.

To do this, personal success has to become the driving purpose of our lives. We’re afraid that if we don’t do everything within our power to succeed, we’ll fall behind and fail. This has caused young people everywhere to become increasingly obsessed with their success. This is shown by our collective obsession with our:

• Grades: if I get a B then I’ll get off of the “success” track in life.

• College: if I don’t get into a top school then I’ll be a failure.

• Career: if I don’t get my dream job in my 20s then I’ll be stuck living in a run-down house in a bad part of town and won’t be able to afford the good life.

• Marriage: if I don’t get married to the right kind of person, then not only will I be a failure, but my future children will be as well.

• Money: if I don’t have plenty of extra money, then I won’t be able to do the fun things I want to, much less be able to retire by my target date.

The pursuit of success becomes our ultimate desire. It’s what we orient our lives around. It’s what we think about in our free time, what we talk about when we’re with friends, and what we scheme about at work, always wondering, “How can I become more successful?”

And so we hustle through life, looking for ways to increase our productivity and achieve more at work. The more we can get done, the better chance we’ll have at hitting our version of success, whether that’s to have the most picturesque family or to show up on the “Forbes 30 Under 30” list.

We look to the patron saints of success, people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, for insight, studying their lives through articles and podcasts, hoping to glean their secrets and imitate their achievements.

Even our Christianity becomes success-oriented. We gravitate towards “successful” churches and know that the most common prayer in our twenties is some version of: “God, please help me be successful!”

I hope it’s clear how much our society (and each of us) is driven by a longing for success. We’re all driven by a deep desire for success, afraid that if we don’t do everything we can to get it, we’ll fall behind and will never flourish.

how does success promise us the flourishing life?

So how does achieving personal success lead to the flourishing life? Our culture believes that success creates flourishing because it will:

1. Be inherently fulfilling: the idea we have when we’re young and at the beginning of our careers is that success will make us feel fulfilled, give us purpose, and provide meaning for our lives. We spend so much of our lives thinking that if we could just reach this level of achievement, then we’d feel satisfied.

   People work such long hours at jobs they don’t enjoy, because they think that by the end of their lives they will achieve some amount of success that’ll make them feel like they have won at life. In The Atlantic, Derek Thompson calls this workism: the belief that if we obsess over work, it will someday fulfill us.

2. Give us the resources to live the good life: we trust that if we are successful, we’ll be affluent enough to buy and consume everything we need to live our best life. The culmination of our lives becomes using our resources to make sure we enjoy life as much as possible. This is why so many young people take a “work hard / play hard” approach to life.

   This comes out in how young people talk about life. When sharing what they’re passionate about, I’ve heard so many young people list things like: skiing, restaurants, concerts, wine, the beach, mountains, Netflix, traveling, and other things like that. What they don’t realize, is that at their core they’re only passionate about one thing, though: themselves!

   They would never admit that out loud, but all of their “passions” are only about meeting their own needs, not serving others or contributing to the greater community. Not that any of these things are bad, but you can see their mindset: I need to be successful so that I can enact my vision of the good life.

3. Allow us to create heaven on earth through retirement: The ultimate goal in our personal success culture is retirement, preferably as early as possible. Young people hope that they are so successful at work that they’ll be able to save enough money to stop working and enjoy the good life permanently.

   Why is retirement so alluring? Because it’s our secular version of heaven. Since most people don’t live as if heaven is real, retirement becomes our cultural attempt at creating a utopian-esque heaven-on-earth, where you live in a beautiful place, like the beach or the mountains, and everything will be perfect. We’ll live a life of leisure and enjoy all of the good things that make us feel most fulfilled.

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These beliefs cause young people to pick careers not on the basis of what work is important or worth doing, but rather on whether it gives you the ability to become affluent, credentialed, and respected.

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I recently heard an acquaintance sharing how excited he was to be done with medical school. Why? Not because he was looking forward to treating patients, but because he was one step closer to his dream lifestyle: a giant house, a new BMW, and enough money to do whatever he wanted.

This mindset is so common among young people today and shows how much we adopted our cultural drive: if you can achieve enough personal success, then you’ll be able to get the good life and truly flourish.

why doesn’t this approach work?

The problem, though, is that despite the promises, this approach doesn’t work. No matter what we do, no matter how much we achieve, no matter how much we consume, it can’t satisfy the longings of our hearts.

People work and work, hoping that they’ll make enough money to get the good life. The problem, though, is that no matter how successful they are, they are never able to find fulfillment for their deepest desires.

While some people blame capitalism for training us to never be satisfied, most people just assume their problem is that they just haven’t succeeded enough! So they double-down on trying to create a flourishing life through personal success.

But this never works. How do we know? Because the people who have reached the ultimate levels of success show no more evidence of feeling fulfilled than ordinary people does. Just read this interview with a 27-year-old Tom Brady:

Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and think there's still something greater out there for me? Maybe a lot of people would say "Hey man, this is what it is." I've reached my goal, my dream. Me? I think there's got to be more than this. I mean this can't be what it's all cracked up to be. I've done it. I'm 27. What else is there for me?

Then, after the interviewer asks Tom what's the answer, he stared at the camera with a blank face and replied, "I wish I knew." 

Madonna, maybe the most successful musician of all time, said this in an interview:

My ego cannot be satisfied. My sense of self, my desire for self-worth, my need to be somebody----it is not fulfilled. I keep thinking I have won it from what people have said about me and what the magazines and newspapers have written. But the next day, I have to go back and look somewhere else. Why? Because my ego is insatiable. It's a black hole. It doesn't matter how much I throw into it, the cupboard is bare. I have become somebody---but I still need to become somebody.

We might think that we’d be different if we were famous, but the comedian and actor Jim Carrey warns us of this idea, saying:

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.

Our surprise at these celebrity stories should alert us to the amount of trust we’ve put in our culture’s attempt to flourish through personal success. But the idea that success can’t fill the longings of our heart isn’t new, we just choose to ignore the evidence.

Solomon, one of the most successful people in the history of the world, wrote that:

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. All a man’s labor is for his mouth and yet the appetite is not satisfied.

We spend our lives hoping that this next thing will ultimately satisfy us, forgetting all of the other things that we thought would satisfy us but didn’t. The prophet Isaiah challenges our culture’s thinking, asking us:

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
    and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

No matter how much you achieve, you’ll never find satisfaction through these things. So may people live their entire lives thinking: “If I only had ______, then I’d be satisfied.”

But one of two things always happens: Either you get the thing you wanted and realize that you’re still empty. Or, you don’t get the thing and you become bitter and resentful towards whomever you think is holding you back, especially if it’s God.

the result of the secular approach

So if the secular approach to flourishing doesn’t give us fulfillment, then what do we get? Problems. All kinds of them, including:

• Exhaustion: we work harder and harder, thinking that at some point we’ll be satisfied. This causes us to overwork, resulting in exhaustion, declining productivity, and burn out.

• Manipulation: since everything becomes about our success, we tend to treat everyone and everything transactionally. We manipulate the people around us and use them for our own good.

• Loneliness: we spend so much time pursuing our own personal success that we struggle with commitment and don’t prioritize relationships with others. We’re always moving to new jobs, new cities, new churches in order to find something that meets our needs and increases our ability to be successful.

• Self-obsession: The only thing we think and care about is our personal success. We inflate our small problems until they are huge, allowing us to avoid ever thinking about how we could help other people in our communities. We feel a vague sympathy for less fortunate people, but never have any time to help.

• Angst: in moments of failure or real solitude, we struggle with the big existential questions: what’s it all for? Why am I working so hard? Does any of this stuff actually matter?” and realize that we don’t have great answers."

When you try to find satisfaction and fulfillment through your personal success it doesn’t work. You’ll only find emptiness, isolation, and a profound dissatisfaction that you can’t shake no matter what you do. While our culture acts as if these side effects of our success-based system don’t exist, they do so much damage throughout our society

what’s the root problem with the secular approach?

But there’s a deeper reason that trying to flourish through personal success doesn’t work. The problem isn’t with success, though, but rather how we use success. After all, we should strive to be successful with the gifts that God has given to us.

Things go wrong, though, when we use the gifts of God to try to flourish on our own apart from God. That’s what happened in the Garden of Eden. When God created Adam and Eve, he made them to be in a relationship with him, and they flourished in his presence.

But after Satan tempted them to eat the forbidden fruit, they began to distrust God:

Maybe God’s holding out on us…he set up this rule so that we wouldn’t flourish. We all know that eating this fruit will give us more satisfaction than a relationship with God will.

And so, because they thought that satisfying their own desires would give them more fulfillment than desiring God, they ate the fruit. But rather than moving to a higher plane of flourishing, they rejected God and lost their relationship with him.

But since we were only made to flourish in relation to God, the Fall brought emptiness, loneliness, and a sense of disconnectedness, leaving us with, as Blaise Pascal put it, a God-shaped vacuum in our hearts.

We try to fill this hole with success, thinking that if we can just achieve enough then we’ll feel good. When you try to satisfy your deepest desires with anything but God, you’re setting yourself up for a life of emptiness and self-destruction. Your career is a good thing, when you try to make it an ultimate thing, it will be crushed under that kind of pressure.

Now, every human being tries to satisfy the spiritual desires that God’s given us, to have purpose and meaning and satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment, apart from God. But only a relationship with God can satisfy these spiritual cravings.

As Augustine said:

You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

Only a restored relationship with our Creator can give us the meaning, satisfaction, purpose, and fulfillment that we’re all longing for.

Part 2: Jesus’ approach to human flourishing

Jesus’ approach to flourishing is the exact opposite of our secular culture: it’s not those whose deepest desire is success that flourish, but rather those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they shall be filled.

Like all of the other Beatitudes, our culture finds this teaching strange: how can someone who’s starving and parched be thought of as flourishing? It seems the opposite of the good life in every way possible.

And then there’s the whole idea of righteousness. Who wants to be righteous in today’s world? When most people hear the word righteousness, they can’t help but think of pharisaical, legalistic religious types.

So what does Jesus mean in this fourth Beatitude? How does hungering and thirsting after righteousness lead to a flourishing life?

what does Jesus mean by this beatitude?

When Jesus says that it’s those who hunger and thirst for righteousness who will flourish, he’s telling us: flourishing are those whose deepest drive in life is a desire for righteousness.

By using the verbs hunger and thirst, Jesus wants us to examine our deepest desires. He wants to know: what are you starving and thirsty for?

Think about it, when you’re starving and parched, how do you act? You don’t just sit around and contemplate finding something to eat and drink, all of your thoughts, plans, and actions revolve around trying to satisfy your longing for food and water. You pursue these things and won’t let anything else get in your way.

That’s what Jesus wants you to see. He’s saying that if you want to flourish, a hunger and thirst for righteousness has to be the consuming desire of your life!

This means that the key to flourishing isn’t becoming successful or getting the good life, but rather pursuing righteousness with the same energy, effort, and desire that a person struggling with hunger and thirst has for food and water.

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The person who follows this Beatitude sees righteousness not as an optional part of life, but has a life-defining passion and appetite for it.

so what is righteousness?

Righteousness, like meekness, is another one of those vague religious-sounding words that we’re not really sure what it actually means. At its core, righteousness means “one who is right,” not in the sense of being correct, but rather morally good.

When Jesus uses righteousness here, he’s ultimately referring to the moral goodness and holiness of God. He’s saying that flourishing comes by hungering and thirsting after the moral goodness and holiness of God.

Pastor Chuck Swindoll says that a person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness has an:

Insatiable appetite for what is right, a passionate drive for justice...and is engaged in the pursuit of God. They have a hot, restless, eager longing to walk with Him and to please Him.

When we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, we are longing to be like Jesus in every area and relationship of life. We have a deep appetite to follow God’s will and do what he says is right, resulting in us becoming more and more like Jesus.

Too often, though, Christians just see righteousness in its individualistic, legal sense: that because of Christ’s righteousness I am justified by God and seen as righteous in his sight. But Biblical righteousness is more than this, and as we are declared righteous before God, a desire to be holy will spill over into every area of our lives, causing us to desire:

• Moral righteousness: when we are justified through Christ’s righteousness, the Holy Spirit begins to work in our hearts to make us become more and more like Christ in every area of our lives.

• Social righteousness: when we grow to become like Christ, we begin to desire for more than just personal holiness, but also societal holiness. We grieve over the brokenness and destructiveness of sin that’s all around us, causing us to pursue what God sees as right and good in every area of society.

When we hunger and thirst after righteousness, our lives are no longer driven by a need for personal success or fulfillment, but rather by a deep longing for the goodness and holiness of God in all of life: we want to live like Jesus Christ.

so what does this look like in real life?

It’s so important to note, though, that when Jesus tells you to hunger and thirst for righteousness, he’s talking about your internal appetites, not your external actions. So many people around Jesus tried to act righteous, but never desired righteousness.

The Pharisees obsessed over appearing like they were the ultimate followers of God. But deep down, they didn’t desire God, they just wanted the praise of other people. We can do the same thing, using Christianity not to get God, but rather to gain religious affluence, credentials, and prestige.

But a real appetite for righteousness doesn't just come from outward behavior, but rather from a regenerated heart. A true craving for God can only flow out of a heart that has been changed by the Holy Spirit. If you skip the heart change, you’ll just succumb to self-righteousness, thinking that you can achieve moral and social righteousness on your own.

When our hearts are regenerated by God the pursuit of him becomes the most important thing in our lives. We see this in Psalm 42, where the psalmist writes:

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 

For the person who is hungering and thirsting after righteousness, their deepest appetite is for God: they want to spend time with him, to become like him, and to see our world follow him. They want to leave sin behind and pursue an ever-increasing righteousness in every area of your life. 

how do you get this appetite for righteousness?

It’s easy, though, to go through the motions of being a Christian without hungering and thirsting for righteousness. So how do we cultivate a greater appetite for God and his kingdom?

The answer is that you have to work up a spiritual appetite by:

1. Living for God: spiritual appetites are like physical appetites, they grow when you do things that require nourishment. If you are spiritually lazy, you’ll never hunger or thirst for righteousness. But if you are living for God and loving your neighbor, praying for your enemies, and serving others, you’ll need the spiritual calories and will develop an appetite for God.

2. Quit eating spiritual junk food: it’s so easy to ruin our appetite for God by filling up on spiritual and emotional junk food. We spend our lives consuming the empty calories of TV, movies, Instagram, and inspirational Christian content. It tastes good and is fun to eat, but it causes us to never hunger and thirst for God.

3. Getting rid of distractions: if we’re not careful we can get so distracted by the cares and concerns of life, like buying possessions, upgrading our apartment, or having a bustling social life (especially on Sundays) that we never have any time to go to church, read our Bibles, or fellowship with God through prayer.

God doesn’t force us to hunger and thirst after him. He never says, “Do this or else!” But Jesus makes clear that if we ever want to experience a truly flourishing life, we have to pursue God and make our desire for him the driving passion of our lives.

why does hungering and thirsting lead to flourishing?

As with all of the other Beatitudes, Jesus isn't telling us that hunger and thirst are inherent states of flourishing. He's not encouraging you to literally starve yourself, physically, emotionally, or spiritually, in order to flourish.

So why do those who hunger and thirst for righteousness flourish? Jesus says that it's because they shall be filled.

Jesus uses what’s called the divine passive here. Since Jewish people in that time avoided using God’s name, they developed the divine passive in order to refer to God, without saying his name.

Jesus is saying that those with an appetite for righteousness will flourish because they will be satisfied by God! Those who pursue him above everything else will find in him the fulfillment to their deepest longings in life.

The idea behind the word filled is that we are STUFFED, so satisfied by God that we couldn’t take another bite. It’s like the feeling we have after Thanksgiving dinner, when we finally admit that we can’t eat any more food. We’re so satisfied.

Jesus makes it clear here: only God can satisfy the deepest longings of your heart. There are so many good things in this world, but created things can never fill your heart. Only your Creator can satisfy the aching emptiness of our hearts, and provide the peace, meaning, fulfillment, and hope that we’re all trying to find.

How does this happen? Jesus tells us that it’s through him:

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 

When we pursue Jesus, he meets us in our deepest longings, promising to meet our needs and give us the abundant and eternal life that we all want. But Jesus doesn’t just give us a promise, he shows us through the Lord’s Supper: when we eat his body and drink his blood, we are spiritually nourished as we remember his atoning sacrifice for us.

Because of Christ’ body and blood we are welcomed back into a relationship with God, and will be reunited with him in the New Heavens and New Earth. Just listen to how John describes it in Revelation:

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. 

This is ultimately what our hearts yearn for: to be in God’s presence in a place where there is no more hunger or thirst or crying, as Jesus satisfies us in every way.

but how are we going to flourish in this life?

But, you might be wondering, what about your day-to-day needs? How are you going to flourish if you don’t make personal success the driving desire in your life? We worry, afraid that if we don’t do everything we can to become affluent, credentialed, and prestigious, then we will never flourish.

But Jesus gives us his promise later in the Sermon on the Mount. If you seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, everything else that you need will be given to you as well!

This is why you can hunger and thirst, not for success, but for righteousness, because Jesus will make sure that you have everything you need to live.

The result of this promise: because Jesus is caring for us, we are set free from our self-interested obsession with personal success, and can now use our lives not to work for the flourishing of things. When you no longer have to devote your life to your kingdom to ensure that you flourish, you are able to serve God and help usher in his kingdom, leading to a world where more and more people flourish.

where do we get the power to follow this Beatitude?

So where do we get the ability to let go of our desires and instead hunger and thirst after God? By understanding Jesus’ love for us on the cross. It was on the cross that the wrath of God, the judgment that we deserved, came down on Jesus, leaving him cosmically thirsty. In Psalm 22, the psalmist foretells Jesus’ death, saying:

My mouth is dried up like a piece of broken pottery, and my sticker to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.

Jesus experience the ultimate spiritual thirst while he was on the cross, so that we might have access to the refreshing living water of a relationship with God. Jesus allowed himself to be cosmically thirsty so that we could welcomed back into God’s presence and be eternally satisfied. That is the ultimate good life!

NEXT POST: Beatitude #5: how do you create social change?

1

This is a major reason why investing content is so popular on social media: it promises to give us the tools to create this heaven on earth without God. If you can just get to $5 or 10 million, then you’ll be able to create a life of total fulfillment.

2

It’s no accident that dating apps are designed to let you instantly gauge the affluence, credentials, and prestige of the other person, by showing you where they went to college, what kind of work they do, and what type of lifestyle they are able to afford.

3

When I lived in South Sudan, the intense heat of the dry season would dehydrate you so quickly. If you went more than a few hours without water, your throat would turn dry and your body when start to shut down. When that happened, finding water didn’t become an optional errand to put on your list, but rather the most important task in your life. It would dominate your thinking until you found something to drink.