Our family was watching a popular drama on Netflix recently. In the episode we watched a young girl, experiencing her first year of college, was defending her string of casual sexual encounters aided by heavy drinking. She described her time in high school and how hard she studied and how she gave up so much by being good. It is interesting how we frame reward and what we consider a burden. I am far past my college years and my oldest daughter is nearing hers. I can't remember what I thought I "deserved" when I was in college, but I'm certain that my views of work and sacrifice and goodness needed some redirecting. And what my daughters view as a reward will dramatically affect how they work and what they work for and what they hold as good.
The way the girl in the episode explained things it made it seem as if there was no question that drunkenness and promiscuity was a just reward for years of hard work. I can't quite put my finger on why in my 20's this would have made so much sense and now it seems so empty. And let me be clear, I'm not going Puritan and railing against the evils of sex and spirit. That is not what this is about. What I'm trying to express is how sad it is that we hope in so little and turn work into burden.
I have a friend who has devoted much of her young life to inspiring others and motivating those around her to take action and be active for the joy of the act itself, with the reward of fitness and good health being a by-product of the pursuit of an inspired life. She posted the following in response to quick-fix weight loss ads, "Weight loss services that market "no exercise required" are actually a great example of a true disservice." I think the sentiment she expresses touches on the same fallacy that struck me. It seems like we are missing the point. We are missing the goodness.
It's no revelation that our society praises the shallow and the individual above all else. Our identity in our own image seems to drive all of our efforts. I'll spare you the examples in popular culture. We are willing to work, we are willing to sacrifice, but the things we end up working for seem to fall so short of any kind of worthiness. The young girl from the TV show works and sacrifices and is "good" but that goodness isn't tied to anything she truly values. In the end, she and the rest of us give up on our own efforts and indulge in that which we have built up as a just reward. The Party is fun in the short term, but never lasts and is never enough. The emptiness that ensues is in fact our just reward. It is the price paid for missing the point in a cosmic way. Our image, our worth is supposed to be tied to He who made us. If we understand where we derive our value, that changes our view of what is worthy of our work and what we should hope for as a reward. We are not saved by our "works", but if we are saved we will work.
Galatians 5 tells us what seeking our own desires of the flesh yields us
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
And as I think of the quote that began this post, I think of the Parable of the Lost Son. In that parable, there are two sons. One goes off and seeks pleasure, rejecting his father in doing so. The older son stays with the father and remains loyal to his father. But both sons fail to behold what is the proper and worthy reward. The younger son takes his inheritance and squanders it. The older son remains, but still seeks that inheritance. Both miss the point. The older says, "I've worked so hard!" The younger says, "I deserve this!" Better than the riches of the inheritance is simply to be with their father, in his home and in his care.
You are worth much more than you know dear friend. Don't be so short sighted as to focus on the immediate needs of your flesh or what the world tells you you deserve. For the creator of all made you in his image and gave himself that you might live. What we deserve is death, but what we get is life. What we get is Jesus. He says we are worth something and was willing to lay down his life to retrieve us. God is good. Work is good. But there is no amount of work that can earn his goodness. Instead he gives it freely. And in accepting that goodness, it inspires us to work. We find our worth in what he has declared, not in what we declare for ourselves. Once in his will, once seeking his kingdom, we find peace and real fruit from our efforts.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
