This month I have felt discouraged and inferior when it comes to my career trajectory and how little I earn, compared to my siblings, friends, and neighbors. Many of them, my peers, have stimulating and successful careers and live comfortable material lives (big houses in beautiful neighborhoods, ability to pay for private college or school expenses for their children, travels to Europe, etc). I feel like I have wasted my potential and promise. Now that I am nearly 50 years old, doors are closing fast! Or it would require a miracle to open them, long ago tightly slammed and bolted shut. I wonder, “If only I had chosen that path instead…” or “If only I were more hard-working or more savvy or …”.
I admonish my unquiet and grumbling heart by saying that a seemingly ideal, successful, or comfortable life from the outsider’s perspective is full of its own discontents, sadnesses, regrets, and failures. Surely everyone has these, wherever they are on the Ladder to a Satisfying Life, whether on the top rung, the bottom, or somewhere in between. We need to remind ourselves of this, especially in those moments when we are discouraged or envious of others. It is easy in our culture that whispers false counsel to us at every turn to feel like we are inferior or not good enough, in any category. The Ladder to a Satisfying Life is based on achievements, career success, wealth, material possessions, your own children’s accomplishments, good health, attractive and youthful looks, and sexuality. This is the high-flying social media version–the comforts and pleasures are enjoyed in living color.
Another version, more subtle and perhaps then more easily unrecognizable, is the Ladder to a Satisfying Life based on a growing relationship with Jesus, a joyful marriage, patient and nurturing parenting, ministries that genuinely bless and serve others, deep and intimate friendships with others who understand and appreciate us, work that we enjoy and that pays the bills, feeling like we matter and are significant for the sake of the gospel. This appears to be the more humble version of the Ladder, the Jesus-centered one. This is the sepia-toned version, with delicate piano playing “How Great Thou Art” in the background. It is cliched. It is an idealized picture of the Christian life that any savvy believer knows is not attainable. Most of us have experienced at least one or two hardships from the vast array of life’s many difficulties that can’t quite be placed tidily in a box. And yet, these things on this Ladder are good things on this earth that many Christians would want and would pray for.
For me, it is easy to be climbing either ladder, switching back and forth between the two. And obviously the two are not mutually exclusive, for the human experience, Christian or not, is complex, messy, varied, and unpredictable. If you see me with my arms high up on the top or near the top of the Ladder, I am bristling with a (false) sense of confidence and happiness. “Look! I get to work part time and take my daughters to soccer practice! See how I can have it all!” Or when I am somewhere in the middle of the ladder or like a crumpled heap on the bottom of the ladder, I am no doubt feeling that internal pressure that drives me relentlessly and restlessly. “If only I worked harder or did something different, then God would bless me the way He has blessed that woman.”
It is hard to keep steady and rest in God and what He has deemed fit for me and my life at any given moment, because I am too fixated on climbing up either ladder. I want to emphasize that the compulsion to live what we think constitutes the ideal Christian life – that is, climbing the second Ladder – can ironically become its own selfish desire. We are so busy reaching our hands to grasp the next rung that we are fundamentally not seeking to glorify God. We are trying to attain something that resembles a Christian lifestyle, but that is actually a counterfeit based on our own merits and hard work. Both Ladders, then, are our human constructions to feel worthy, significant, to feel that we are better than others.
But we can concede that the things we aspire to on both these Ladders are in and of themselves good things in this life. What mother, when her child is sick, would not want healing and respite from physical pain for her child? Who would not want a joyful marriage if much of their lived reality is a cold peace with low-grade tensions that occasionally flare up between them? Who would not want to see tangible fruit in their years-long ministry among hardened and jaded addicts or impoverished orphans?
But even a good desire–or a healthy desire for a good thing–can lead us astray.
I am prone to wander and to be deceived by this world beckoning, tantalizing me with its various treasures. I easily forget–for hours or days or, admittedly, months at a time–the mercies of Jesus, when I am so focused on making my life better, climbing one or both these Ladders. Even if we are on top of these Ladders, so what? Where do we end up? Satisfied with things here on earth? Recognized by others for our accomplishments or kind acts? David Powlison in his book “Seeing With New Eyes” called these strivings Ladders to Nowhere. In the end, when we die, they lead nowhere. And even more, they lead us to troubles and sorrows and challenges here in this life also. My human heart is more susceptible and gullible than I’d like to admit; and the culture more savvy and alluring in its deceitful false counsel than many of us realize.
I was recently sobered when I read Paul’s personal testimony in his letter to the Philippians that he considered all his achievements, pedigree, smarts, and good deeds garbage, a loss, so that he might gain Christ and be found in Christ:
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3)
Paul knows with deep assurance and strong conviction of his purpose in life – to know Jesus and to become more like Jesus in His sufferings, death, and resurrection. Compared to this calling, any Ladder to a Satisfying Life is weak and measly and powerless and unworthy; and so are we foolish ones who are striving to get to a higher rung.
But I still have to make existential and practical choices at various cross points in my life! How can I have this single-minded vision and have it renew and redeem my desires here on earth? I start with the vision here in Philippians 3, and I let it fully inform my mission, crafted with my personal interests and gifts and opportunities in mind. I remind myself that I made choices and decisions in my work life based on what I believed God was calling me to do – to minister to others using Biblical counseling skills and to write and teach literature. I also prioritized having flexibility and time to raise our daughters. This has meant that I have had to accept the economic market of having fewer job opportunities, less job security, and less pay than those with professions like physicians or attorneys.
Also, circumstances outside of my control have affected my work life – the college I was very happily teaching at effectively closed down. It was a dream job that was taken away. I am still grieving the loss, but it helps to try to have a renewed mind, influenced by these verses from Philippians. I am confident that God arranged these circumstances, hard as they have been, with His good intentions for my flourishing in Him. I am grateful now, as an example of the enrichment that has emerged, to have time and mental space to write more and also to spend more time with our daughters, even if it means our financial situation is tighter.
Paul’s words exhort me to delight in Jesus as I am using my time and gifts to teach at another college, to write, and to raise our daughters. And often things don’t go the way I want, in ways small and big – this ranges from being disappointed I didn’t get a pleasure or luxury or comfort, on one level, to needing ankle surgery from a recent accidental fall, on another level, to feeling discouraged by conflicts in my relationships, on yet another level. I can pivot these things into opportunities to think about Jesus. “To gain Christ and be found in Him”. This is not as natural as it might seem, at least for me. I am prone to wander, in what I am thinking about and how I interpret things that happen to me.
Even so, let me try. I think about who He is – my Redeemer, my Savior, my Advocate. To gain Christ and to be found in Him is to know Him as He has fulfilled His multiple, varied acts of love and kind rescue. He has loved me, and He loves me still. He is continually praying for me, advocating on my behalf, before God the Father. Jesus knows my sinful judgments of others, my secret lusts and fantasies, my self-absorption, my anger, and still He forgives me and He welcomes me into Paradise with Him, as he did the thief on the cross adjacent to Him. I think about what He has endured and suffered – rejection, life in the ancient world without modern conveniences, mockery by many, being misunderstood and unappreciated and even betrayed by close friends, physical discomforts and pains of the worst kinds, even death on the cross. He lived, as a human being in 1st Century AD, in some ways a very ordinary, humble life with its mundane difficulties – no Tylenol for aches, no air conditioning for heat waves, having to spend all day cooking and cleaning and doing carpentry work. He surely would have been on the bottom or near the bottom of the Ladder to a Satisfying Life, at least from a human perspective.
And I don’t want to be too quick to think it was easy for Jesus. On the one hand, wasn’t He single-minded on fulfilling His Father’s mission? Didn’t He scold His disciples and others for not doing what He Himself could do so effortlessly – praying, having faith, healing effectively, interpreting the Jewish scriptures accurately, getting priorities straight? It seemed natural for Jesus to live a godly life and to set a good example.
Yet, on the other hand, how could it have been easy or natural for Jesus? He was fully human, immersed in our human predicament, living and working and hurting and grieving and dying in a world rife with natural disasters and disease, political oppression, and human sin and conflict. He was the Word made flesh, and made His dwelling among us (John 1:14). Hebrews tells us that Jesus has sympathized with our every weakness and has been tempted and yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). So doesn’t that mean that He knows and understands everything that I am struggling with, in my mundane everyday existence, no matter how seemingly trivial or insignificant? I matter to Jesus, and so what I go through matters to Him.
And I know He cares deeply about how I interpret what comes at me, and how I respond. Each of my situations creates a choice point for me to either turn to Him and His mercies, or to turn away from Him. And turning away from Jesus means running back towards myself; it means trying once again to create temporary happiness for myself with any number of earthly, or counterfeit, treasures. Do I climb one of these Ladders, or do I trust in Him who has to come to dismantle the Ladders to Nowhere, and who offers Himself as the only living water that satisfies our hearts? What will I choose? And when I so often foolishly take the wrong turn – admittedly deliberately, believing Jesus will forgive me – it is never too late to turn, once again, to Him. It is seriously embarrassing how many wrong detours I have taken, and sometimes how long it has taken, if ever, for me to stop dead in my tracks, to pivot, and to go back the right direction. I am comforted by God’s promise in 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Even after days, or years in a few cases, it is not too late for me to come, with relief, resting, with joy and with sorrow both, to Jesus. This is a continual turning for me, an entire lifetime’s work.
And each turning towards Him, each thought of Him, each prayer, is a single step towards His resurrection life. Our becoming more like Jesus in His new life becomes a pattern, a collection, of these separate steps that demonstrate faith in Him, belief that He will do His wondrous work in us.
What does this pattern look like for me this month? (For I believe He gives us individual ways and patterns of turning toward Him; each believer’s turning is unique to her amidst her particular circumstances.). For one thing, the next time I hear of or think about someone else’s professional success or beautiful house or accomplished child-athlete, I will remind myself that Jesus has me and our daughters where He wants us, and that He will continue the good work that He began in each of us. He will bring it to completion, even, He promises in Philippians 1:6. We will be perfected in form and soul; He will perfect us and delight in His masterpieces.
For another example, I can practice being grateful to God for the material blessings He has given me and my family. Even more, I will aim to give away even more of our resources to those less fortunate. (Even now as I write this, my heart is quick to protest: “But, Lord, there is barely anything left over! What about this birthday celebration, or that vacation, or this sports uniform, or … or…” I am in continual need of God’s help, even as I try to turn towards Him in faith! More precisely, I need His help the most exactly when I am trying to orient myself towards Him, so insidious and diligent is my embedded sin). I can identify ways for our daughters and me to give and serve together – perhaps donating school supplies or giving Christmas gifts to children in need, or praying regularly for children in war-torn or impoverished areas around the world.
These would be small practical antidotes to my own selfish cravings for a more materially satisfying life. But I realize that all of these things – reminding myself of God’s promises and being grateful and giving to the poor and praying – in and of themselves are not valuable or honorable or righteous. They are, seen rightly, good fruit that pulse and emanate from a sincere love for Jesus and a godly desire to partake in His sufferings and death and resurrection. I will always have mixed motives before God perfects me in heaven; but let my trying be renewed, even as my failures in trying will be redeemed by Him who loves me. This is His powerful resurrection at work, not just in me, but in all believers, and throughout the entire cosmos.