Good, Not Great

I have felt this urge my entire life to be good at everything I do. As a kid, I was the most competitive person I knew, which compounded with a bit of athleticism and decent hand-eye coordination, naturally led me into the world of sports. Even at an early age, I felt like I had an acute ability to focus on a specific goal (no pun intended) and that I could always muster up enough determination to succeed. And as a pitcher, goalie, right offensive tackle, and at other various positions/sports, I usually was.

When I was a teenager, and started thinking more seriously about my future, I determined this blessing was also somewhat of a curse. For some reason, I also believed I was somewhat predisposed to indecisiveness. Therefore, it left me feeling that while I could pursue almost any area of study I had an interest in, I would not be capable of putting all my effort into one thing and be the best I could be, let alone one of the best at all.

As a result, I held off from going to college after graduating high school and joined the minimum wage workforce. Coincidently, this turned out to be the best and worst decision I made in my life. While it put me behind and hindered me from graduating from college until the past Spring, it also allowed me to find my wife (and therefore have the family I could not imagine living without). For that alone I could not be more grateful. The problem remains, however, of not knowing what I should do with my life, both in the short term and long term future.

I have a job that I am pretty happy with, although it is not an ideal situation (does such a thing exist?). I am consistently waffling between trying to be content where I am and longing for something more fulfilling regarding where I spend the majority of my waking hours each day.

What it boils down to, as I recently realized, is my fear of becoming great at something to the point where I cannot hide behind my own shadow of insecurity and self doubt. In fact, in almost everything I do, I fear success more than failure. I believe this mindset has come from a misunderstanding of how to live the Christian life and what humility actually looks like.

By trying to steer clear of any hint of pride, I have been attempting to be “the most” obscure and unrecognized person I can. As it turns out, there is pride in that line of thinking as well. Only recently have I begun to understand, and perhaps more importantly, accept the idea that God is glorified and glad when we use the gifts He gave us. What I can take “pride” in is knowing that anytime I receive a compliment for something I have done well, I can accept it with the knowledge that they are seeing God’s work in my life and not something I have created (and would therefore be worthy of the praise myself).

Giving the glory to God and using my gifts for His praise is why He created me in the first place. By hiding them from the world, I am denying Him the glory He so justly deserves, as well as myself the experience of enjoying His gifts that ultimately will draw me closer to Him.

I now pray that God would continue to help me see every day as an opportunity to share the gifts that God gave me, because He loved me enough to give them to me in the first place. I believe it His plan for all our lives to be content with what we have because He has given us everything we need, as He will use us to show His greatness through us so that all may come to know Him.

What exciting news this is, to be given the most important task on God’s agenda, along with the promise of His help to carry out the mission! What more could we ask for or need?

Ye Shall Be Judged

Why are we so quick to judge? That’s been the question on my mind recently. The Facebook/Twitter generation makes our immediate thoughts and reactions so accessible to one another, that hardly anyone thinks before they “speak” anymore. If you do a quick Google search for “quick to judge”, there are countless blogs and web sites where people are asking the question, “Why are we quick to judge?”. Many of them point to discussions about why Christians are so quick to judge, claiming we are being hypocritical (which I generally agree with).

But until you add the keyword “Bible” in the search itself, no passages are returned to the top of the results page. Yet there happens to be plenty on the subject in question. We may need to think about this more.

Our culture makes it so easy to judge things these days, it’s become a way of life. Vote for your favorite American Idol by texting, vote online for your favorite song or actor/actress with a single click, or voice your opinion on your own blog or someone else with whom you agree or disagree. It’s easy and immediate. We are constantly being encouraged to give our opinion, let alone have one. It’s assumed that we feel strongly about every subject one way or another, and it is our right/duty to voice it in some manner. My question: why?

You used to have to be an expert on a subject to have your opinion heard beyond your water cooler or family holiday party. Now, you can just as easily become a celebrity (think YouTube) just by doing something stupid. In many cases, the stupider (word?), the better.

It is interesting to think about why we have become this way, where we so quickly and easily come to judgment and declare ourselves experts on so many topics. Our ancestors might consider us all modern day “Jacks of all trades”….or maybe just fools. I wonder.

Take the example of the recent reality show/family disaster of Jon & Kate. Now, I don’t even have to say “plus 8″ for you to know exactly who I’m talking about. A few months ago, millions of people didn’t know this family existed, yet they happily lived out their struggles to grow as a family on TV for anyone to see. They seemed happy, and wanted to do this, so we decided it was a good thing.

Then, whether fame became too much or if they just couldn’t deal with life anymore, it all started falling apart. It seemed like the worse it became, the more interested the public become. Somehow, many even decided they wanted them to fail, while others proclaimed, “Who cares?”. Either way, almost everyone took sides before the inevitable downfall came and the couple decided to split.

So, I ask, why do we feel justified in having an opinion about their situation? Is it because we think we know them, because we were given an intimate glimpse into their personal lives? Or has it become our nature to simply judge whatever is thrown in our faces that week? I think part of the rush to judgment comes from the fleeting existence of most things that gain enough fame to warrant mass coverage on a national scale. We inherently know that Jon & Kate are here today, but gone tomorrow, so we might as well make up our minds before they become irrelevant (which they already have, as soon as a bigger celebrity died). To the news, it’s just another day, another story. Yet to us, it seems like a way of life.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m left equally frustrated and exhausted playing this cat and mouse game with the media. I truly do not care about celebrity gossip and what the latest story is. One reason I prefer the Internet as a news source to watching TV or reading a magazine/newspaper is that I can filter content to what I want to read, and can ignore the rest (except for those annoying pop-ups).

As Christians, shouldn’t we be challenging each other to live out what the Bible teaches about judgment? If we did, wouldn’t we be looked at as reasonable human beings more so than impossible to please hypocrites?

Consider this verse, and how it might change your perspective regarding how you react to the next breaking story “everyone is talking about”:

“For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again”. – Matthew 7:2