I have often misunderstood what my goals are supposed to be since I have been a Christian. At one time or another, all of the following have been my goals as a Christian: tell others when they were doing something wrong, get others to follow Jesus, be as pious as possible, be nice to others, get to heaven when I die, and help change the world.
I’m sure there are a host of others I was hell-bent on, and to be fair all of these goals are still goals I have in my faith in some respect. They are a lot more complicated to me than the simple list you just read, but they still exist in my faith in and are priorities. I think a problem arises when these smaller tangible goals become paramount and the primary matters in our faith.
We start detaching these little goals from what I believe the real goal of being a Christian is: to present Christ to the world through your life.
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To be fair, in some situations that will mean telling people when they are doing something wrong, or very directly telling a person about who Jesus Christ is, or simply being kind and graceful to a person who needs to be treated that way. All of those goals I listed are actually just little practices that are part the larger goal of showing the world who Jesus is.
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My biggest stumbling block hasn’t actually been being stuck on one of those smaller goals I listed above. My hang-up has been that I have become short-sighted with my own change as a person. I started to believe that the goal of being a Christian was becoming more of who I am supposed to be and less who I am.
Although the process my sanctification and redemption is very important, it shouldn‘t be what my faith is all about.
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We don’t love the process for the process’ sake (although we do start to really enjoy its challenges and rhythms). Instead, we change who we are because we want to point to Christ. Think about what you would feel when someone, anyone, Christian or not, gets a clearer vision or experience of Christ because of something you were a part of.
You will feel joy.
This is the realization that I think fuels the writers of the New Testament; the same people that urge us to endure, to hold on, and to rejoice in our sufferings. It is not only because of a reward we will receive for ourselves later, but also because we truly believe we are doing a service to Christ and others. We are helping restore the most important relationship that could exist; we are restoring people to see Christ.
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I’ve always marveled at the people whose faith has seemed so strong and consistent that they carry this sense of peace and joy with them no matter what. And I wonder if those things come out of a very clear sense of what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how they feel about what they are doing.
And don’t misunderstand me to be using the word “doing” to mean any kind of specific task or project. I mean the way people live their lives holistically. I’m sure there are some very specific things they are involved in or practices they faithfully keep, but I am talking about the way these believers do everything.
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I, for one, have become guilty of being really enamored with the beauty of what I consider the personal process of being a Christian. The subtle, slow, graceful, sometimes painful, sometimes reliving process of being restored and renewed and reclaimed as something I was meant to be. It brings me to tears to think about the memories I have of specific moments where I suddenly became conscious that it was happening in that very moment. It is a beautiful process that I have fallen in love with.
Even still, that process can become so romanticized and euphoric that it is almost like a drug. And when the process is more painful and than relieving, we are stranded on this isle of dissatisfaction looking at the coast wondering where all the joy went.
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That is a malformed lens to see our faith in because we have made it about us (making our faith about us is something we are incredibly good at). To have the source of our joy be our mission to point to Jesus makes it less about us, more about Jesus, and more about others. If we can have confidence that that is why we are here and what we are always working towards, then perhaps our joy won’t be so fleeting. Perhaps, as well, we will be more able to see ourselves as part of something larger than our own salvation; we can choose to be part of the redemption of everything in this world.
Now that is a joyful thought.
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Peace.
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