Confession of Selfish Ambition

Early in my faith, I read and re-read passages of the New Testament that described the new man, or life in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26, Ephesians 4:17-32 etc). I would do the same with passages that described the carnal life (try Romans 1:29 – 31). And while reading these, I would anxiously try to fix the adjectives in my mind, so that knowing the goal, I could be sure to meet it. I needed to make my life like this in order to please God (and myself..).

The more I did this, the more anxious I became. Each day I was more convinced that this standard set for me was absolutely impossible.

I am definitely one who fears failure, and under normal circumstances, I can avoid failure by only pursuing goals that I’m fairly certain I will meet. I would rather save myself anxiety by leaving the failed thing forgotten then fight the hopelessness I experience when I fail. I choose to do things that I’m fairly certain I will succeed at. Getting back on the horse frightens me like no other.

So I resigned myself to being unrighteous. 
No success being righteous = no more attempts to be righteous = no more failure.

The problem, which I am thankful for, is that I couldn't get my desire to be righteous to go away. Thus ‘resigning myself to unrighteousness’ manifested itself in the form of sleep (in which I could forget that I couldn't achieve the one thing I wanted).

Notice that it was righteousness that I wanted – or my own success in it – no word of righteousness in Christ.

It’s like I was trying to protect my personal supply of hope. Since every failure depleted the supply, I thought not trying to be righteous would keep me from becoming hopeless. In reality, my personal supply of hope went M.I.A, and I ended up hopelessly unrighteous.

And so I slept more.  

Clearly there is an abundance of sin involved here. My self-reliance, to begin with (if I can’t do it, then I give up). My pride (I’m not going to keep trying just so I can keep failing). Fear. Anxiety. Selfish ambition. Lack of faith in general. All focus on me. No focus on Christ. And I wasn't acknowledging my failure to fight any of those sins.

The entire situation made me very much want to take up this defense: “I’m not under the law, I’m under grace, so I can sin and it’s already dealt with, forgiven, I don’t have to deal with it”.

Unfortunately I already knew the rebuttal. Thanks to Paul, as well as the people who managed to get this sinful before I did. And God, of course, for arranging it all. 

Paul: “Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are the one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” (Romans 6:15-16).

I have so misunderstood so many things in so many ways. Primarily, I am under grace in Christ. If I am not living and abiding in Christ, I am not living and abiding in His grace, and I am powerless against sin. What is more, by trying to be comfortable with sin rather than be present in Christ, I was presenting myself as a slave to sin. I was inviting sin to have dominion over me. And it did, quite thoroughly.

***

Some thoughts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer to add to the mix. 
For the thinkers who never stop.

Many of the errors I made regarding my own righteousness I also made regarding the righteousness of my fellow believers. 

The two seem to run quite parallel.

Bonhoeffer ‘On Christian Fellowship’

“Christian brotherhood (and the Christian life) is not an ideal that we realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we participate. The serious Christian is very likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and try to realize it (that’s what I did exactly!!).  But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by great delusionment with other Christian’s in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves... every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of community (or his life!) more than the community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial. God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious (happened to me, still does). The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community (or his life) demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly”.



OTHER LINKS YOU MIGHT LIKE:

Check this out. A thought-provoking discussion of striving vs. grace between Pastor Tullian Tchividjian (Billy Graham's grandson) and Jonathan Merritt.  

And check this out. Micah's experience has some overlap with my own, so maybe it does with yours too. 
Also check out his blog and amble over to it's popular posts (top right).