striving and thriving

Human effort, “elbow grease”, isn’t enough to save our souls.   However, human effort can produce wisdom for a person or a community or a country.  But it’s a certain kind of human effort.  It is the effort to push the ego out of the way, to strive for humility and service.  This effort is fueled by faith.  Tim Keller writes:  “The more we know God, ourselves, the human heart, the order of creation, the times and seasons, the more we will have the wisdom to make good decisions…God offers wise character, hard won over a lifetime.”  Without submitting to accountability to God and some community we run the risk of being “wise in our own eyes only,” and that’s the biggest folly of all.

Whenever I hear a call for personal responsibility as the cure for what ails us, I have to wonder if that shows a lack of understanding of the role that our backgrounds play in giving us the tools for personal responsibility.  It’s not a level playing field.  Some of us come from places or families where being responsible was fostered in us at an early age.  But others, not so much.  Some of us have personalities that just drive us to find order in chaos.  In whatever way we have gained our privileges or sense of responsibility, we must strive to level the field through our churches and communities.  We must be the people who care MORE for those who don’t get the same tools and resources at birth. 

When I am inclined to judge others by their resumes or their pedigrees (what they have done in the past, or what natural gifts they do or do not possess), I should see myself as the recipient of so much grace that I want to share it with others.  I should care less about what they do with that grace, how they “perform”, and more about their God-given right to have the options and opportunity that I have had.  I SHOULD.  But do I?

Love, Liz

“Every day I watch the cars climbing up.  Some go lickety-split up the hill on high…some sputter and shake and slip back to the bottom again.  Same cars, same gasoline, yet some make it and some don’t.  And I say the fellas who can make the hill on high should stop once in a while and help those who can't."
                                              from “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" by screenwriter Robert Riskin