Consequences of Winning

Winning can be satisfying. It can make us feel good that we accomplished something we set out to achieve. Winning can cheer us up when we’re having a bad day. And it can make what we’re doing more fun. These are a few of the positive consequences that can come from winning, and the ones we most often focus on because we experience their direct impacts.

If we were to step back from the glory of winning for a few moments, would we find that everyone around us shares our excitement? Or would we find that while we’re celebrating our victory, someone else is grieving his loss? This topic has been on my mind for the past few months and I wanted to share some of my thoughts as I wrestle with this difficult life challenge.

The Dark Hole of Winning and Losing

I’ve dug deep into the rabbit hole of life’s experiences to uncover the mysteries of winning. And what I’ve uncovered in my quest is far more disturbing than I imagined. My conclusion is this: When there’s a winner, there’s also a loser.

When the New England Patriots competed against the Los Angeles Rams in the most recent Super Bowl, the Patriots won and the Rams lost. When Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2016, Hillary Clinton and a host of other candidates lost the election. When an entrepreneur opens a new business and gains a loyal customer, another entrepreneur loses a loyal customer. When someone interviews and is offered a job, a host of other applicants are denied the job.

It’s a lot of fun to end up on the winning side. But how do you think the people on the losing side feel? How do you think the opposing hockey team feels when you win 10-0? How do you think the person feels who didn’t get offered the job because it was offered to you? How do you think the business owner feels when he loses a loyal customer because you won over that customer? How do you think your spouse feels when you seek out sexual satisfaction from adult movies rather than with her?

Do you think the losers feel discouraged, let down, or hopeless? Do you think they feel like they don’t have what it takes to be a man or woman? Do you think they feel shame? Of course we all hope that the people around us wouldn’t take a loss so personally. And many times we try to brush it off as if the other person is in the wrong for feeling that way, but we don’t even have to look beyond ourselves to realize how great of an impact winning and losing have on our identity. We seem to be impacted more by the outcome of competition than by anything else in our lives.

Why Is Our Identity Wrapped Up in How We Compete?

I think it’s important to do some self-introspection to ask ourselves why our identity is so wrapped up in how we compete. Although I can’t answer this question for you since you know you far better than I do, I can tell you where it comes from for me which I explained in more detail in my previous article titled “Winning Isn’t Everything.”

For me, winning has always been associated with acceptance. If I win, I feel worthy of being accepted by others. Losing, on the other hand, has always been associated with rejection. If I lose, I feel unworthy of acceptance. And my level of acceptance is what has always seemed to drive my identity, value, and self-worth.

Our Response

Once we can answer this question, it’s time for us to move on to figuring out what we’re going to do about it. Honestly, I’m still wrestling with this one. Maybe you have some ideas that you’d be willing to share in the comments section. But here’s where I’ve landed so far.

I want winning and losing to have less of an impact on my identity. I don’t want them to run my life anymore. When I first came to this conclusion, I decided I needed to do one of two things: (1) break my mental connection between winning and acceptance (and losing and rejection) or (2) break the dependence I have on acceptance for my identity.

As someone who used to have a lot of faith in my own abilities to change myself, I attempted both of these solutions. The summary version of the story is that neither option panned out for me. When I tried the first option, I did nothing more than starved myself of acceptance, which left my need for acceptance unsatisfied. When I tried the second option, I found no purpose to my life. Both of these options proved to be nothing more than black holes.

So I decided to go a different direction: I looked to the God who created the universe to find relief from my struggles. In the midst of seeking him, I learned that the reason my identity was so intricately tied to acceptance was because he designed it that way. As long as I remained sinless, I would be accepted. But there’s one rather large problem with this realization: I was born a sinner. It wasn’t my choice to be born a sinner. It wasn’t even my parent’s choice for me to be born a sinner. It was the choice of two people many many years ago that made it so that I was born a sinner. Right from the start, I was already out of God’s favor and there was nothing I could do to earn it back. No infant baptism or resumé of good works could wash away my inherent sinfulness. My situation was hopeless. How’s that for being dealt a bad hand?

But God, made the conscious decision to do something about it: He sent his Son, Jesus, to earth in the form of a human being to live a sinless life, yet he suffered my death penalty and paid for my sins. To say it another way, he took my place. Now when God looks at me, he no longer sees my sinfulness, but instead sees the righteousness of Jesus. The consequence is that he accepts me and there’s nothing I can do to lose his acceptance, no matter how many times I’m a loser.

I guess in a way you could say that both of the options I was trying to accomplish on my own are being fulfilled in the work God is doing in me. He is breaking my mental connection between winning and acceptance since he accepts me regardless of whether I win or lose. And he is breaking my identity’s dependence on acceptance from others and is replacing it with an identity I find merely by being his child. My hope and prayer is that God would perform this same work in you.

Final Thoughts

Does this mean I let others win all the time? Not at all. I don’t lay down like a door mat and let people walk all over me because I want to spare them from a painful experience. Of course I hate seeing other people experience the identity crises they often face when they lose. But I also see God working in the lives of the people around me and he often uses pain to draw his people to him. If I spend the rest of my life intentionally letting everyone around me win, I’d be trying to play God for them because I’d be manipulating the outcome of the competition in order to produce the results I want to see. That’s called having faith in ourselves rather than in God. Instead, no matter what I’m doing, I’ll give it my best effort and trust in God to produce his desired outcome, something which he has proven time and time again that he is both capable of doing and will do.[1]

–

Do you agree that whenever there’s a winner, there’s also a loser? What situations can you think of which either support or deny that claim? How will your answer to this question impact the way you live?

---

[1] For an example of God producing the outcome he desires, see the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. Examples similar to this show up throughout the Bible.

Winning Isn't Everything

I played my first tee ball game when I was six years old. To this day, I can still distinctly remember the yellow jerseys we wore that sported the name Lions Club of West Carrollton. I don’t remember anything about what happened in the game, except that the other team scored more runs than us.

As my dad started our four-door sedan and began to pull out of the parking lot, he asked me a simple question: Did you have fun? Etched somewhere deep in the fabric of my DNA was a strong desire to win. I was extremely attuned to the strong emotional correlation between winning and having fun. So in my six-year-old mind, I thought my dad was asking me a stupid question. We lost; of course I didn’t have fun. It wasn’t until many years later that I began to understand the profoundness of his question.

The Desire to Win

We’ve all encountered people who can turn seemingly everything into a competition. They turn eating into a competition. They turn working out into a competition. They turn work projects into a competition. They even turn going to the bathroom into a competition. And the rules of the game always seem to change in order for that person to win.

I hate to admit it, but for a long time, I was one of those people. I took everything, including all the simple, noncompetitive tasks of life, and turned them into competitions. Competition can be a healthy thing. It can motivate us to step up our game and prove to both others and ourselves that we’re capable of performing at a higher level. But competition, and specifically the desire to win at all costs, can be extremely destructive to both us and our relationships. This was the place I found myself.

After getting my first taste of what it felt like to win, I eagerly awaited the next competition, and the one after that, and the one after that. I became so enamored with the feeling I got from winning that I turned everything in my life into a competition so that I could experience that feeling again and again. I competed with my friends and family to see who could eat the most food at the all-you-can-eat buffets. I competed with my sister for my parents' attention. I competed with my classmates for the best grades. I competed with my little league baseball teammates for the best batting average. I needed competition because I needed to win.

In the midst of my hard-core competitiveness, I only recently realized the depth of the negative impacts it has had on my relationships. Let me put it this way: there’s a reason I’ve never won a sportsmanship award. When I used to engage in competition with someone, even if it was my best friend, I’d villainize the person for the duration of the competition. Growing up, I had a friend down the street who was about my same age and both of us were uber-competitive. When we competed against each other, which was every time we hung out, we were bitter enemies. In the same way, when Amy and I first started dating, we became bitter enemies when we competed against each other. Both of us wanted to win so bad that we’d turn everything into a competition and then fight about which one of us was the winner.

I’m not proud to admit that this was how I behaved for most of my life. And I wish I could go back in time and change the way I treated the people around me because I’m certain I hurt a lot of them in the process of trying to win.

The Mystery Revealed

A few years ago, the mystery behind my strong desire to win began to unravel. Up until that point, I’d never really contemplated the mystery behind why winning felt great; I just knew it did. But through a number of fiery trials that took place in my life, I began to gain some insight into my perpetual struggles.

Although none of us want to admit it, you, me, and everyone else struggle with massive amounts of insecurity. We all seem to wrestle with a very simple, yet defining question: Are we good enough? This question gets asked in a million different ways, but the same basic question remains at the center. Are we good enough to earn acceptance?

It’s no coincidence that we experience a close correlation between winning and being accepted. Think about an athletic event. When the home team wins, the fans cheer. When the home team loses, the fans boo. Do you see the natural correlations our minds draw from these experiences? Since we associate applause with acceptance and booing with rejection, when we win, we think people will accept us. When we lose, we think people will reject us. As someone who deeply desires to be accepted and having, from a young age, correlated winning with acceptance, I wanted to be a winner.

My life could’ve continued exactly the way it had for many years. But God, out of not only knowing what’s best for me but also acting upon it as any good parent would, decided to show me the immeasurable greatness and worth of his acceptance of me. He did two things.

First, God starved my winning idol. At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening. I was continuing to hone my skills in order to win more, but instead of winning more, I was winning less. It seemed completely counter-intuitive. If I was dealing with random chance, then I’m certain the results would’ve been as expected. But I’m not dealing with random chance; I’m dealing with the God who spoke the universe into existence. If he can part the waters of the Red Sea, cause a shepherd boy to slay a giant, and shut the mouths of hungry lions, certainly he can also cause me to lose more even though my skills have become more developed.

And second, God showed me an overwhelming glimpse of the unconditional love he has for me, a love which I not only read about in a book, but one which I personally experience every single day. He doesn’t work the way most people work. God’s love isn’t contingent upon my ability to perform a certain way. He has decided to love me and his decision is final; it will never change based on what I do. At the same time, as a good father, he isn’t content to leave me where I am. He wants me to have the best. And because he wants me to have the best, he’s starving my winning idol. I wait in eager anticipation of the day when that idol is completely removed from my life.

In the meantime, although God is not yet complete with his transforming work in my life, I’m amazed and excited about the difference that his work has made in my life. It’s so freeing to wake up every morning and not see everything I do as a competition. It’s so relieving that Amy and I have stopped fighting about everything we treated as a competition. And it’s so refreshing to realize that I have a Father who loves me no matter what.

Final Thoughts

When I think back to the question my dad asked me twenty-five years ago, I realize that maybe his question wasn’t so stupid after all. Maybe he was trying to teach me that winning isn’t everything. And more importantly, maybe he was trying to teach me that he loved me unconditionally, regardless of whether I was a winner or a loser.

Sand Castles

Shortly after Christmas, Amy and I packed our bags and hopped on a plane for Florida to spend some time with her family. I have to say, Florida is pretty nice this time of year. I got to wear shorts and a t-shirt every day, sit by the pool, play tennis and basketball, and go to the beach.

During one of our beach excursions, I found myself watching our nephews try to construct a primitive sand castle right along the shore line. Having learned from previous sand castle building experiences, our eight year old nephew decided to add an extra-large wall on the ocean side of his sand castle to prevent the waves from overtaking it. However, as the afternoon waned on and the tide continued coming in, I watched as it beat and battered his extra-large walls, slowly tearing them apart and washing them out to sea. By the time we packed up to head out that afternoon, there wasn’t even a small trace of his sand castle remaining. It was as though his castle had never existed.

On the way home, I got to thinking about how similar my nephew’s sand castle building experience is to our own personal achievements. Many of us spend our entire lives building a sand castle that gets beat and battered by the storms of life, and within a couple hundred years of us passing away, there’s not even a trace that our sand castles ever existed.

When I look at my own life and all the stuff I’ve spent my time working on, I’ve seen the same thing happen to quite a bit of it. Most of what I’ve accomplished no longer exists. For example, in previous jobs, I spent hours developing numerous processes and procedural documents to help the projects I’ve been working on to succeed. When I moved on from those jobs, I passed my processes and procedures along to others so that they could continue to implement them, but I highly doubt any of them are still being used.

As another example, when I was on staff at Apex Church in Marion, Ohio, we spent lots of hours and lots of money trying to open up another campus in Findlay. Then the building caught on fire and was eventually torn down. A few months later, the congregation in Marion decided to move buildings, so I designed and led the effort to move our worship space to a different building. Five years later, the church now meets in yet a different building and our former worship space has been transformed into a barber shop. You’d never even know those buildings had at one point been set up as houses of worship.

On the other hand, there are a number of projects I worked on that still exist today such as Tiffany’s and the Lego store at Easton Town Center, the Wexner Medical Center at OSU, and my various tank farm projects at Marathon. But in fifty, a hundred, or two hundred years, I wonder how many of those projects will still exist. Will there be even a trace that any of these places ever existed?

At first, this realization may sound depressing. After all, who wants to spend their entire life building a sand castle that’ll get washed away when the tide rolls in? I have to admit that it’s kind of discouraging to think about these projects disappearing after all the sacrifices I made in order to accomplish them. But I’ve recently had a mindset shift which allows me to see my story differently. I don’t think my time spent on these projects was in the least bit worthless. After all, my work on these projects drew me closer to God, gave me lots of great learning experiences, and enabled me to build relationships with numerous people that I wouldn’t have otherwise met.

Later that evening, I couldn’t help but think about all the projects I’m currently undertaking and recognize that one day all of them will also disappear. In that moment, I found myself being challenged to consider whether I’m currently spending my money, time, and energy building worthwhile sand castles, or whether I’m spending my most valuable resources building worthless sand castles.

I want to challenge you to pause briefly to think about your life. If you knew that all the things you’ve accomplished and all the projects you’re currently working on will one day disappear, would you still continue doing the things you’re doing? Would you continue to build your sand castles, knowing that even though you may build extra thick walls, the waves are still going to beat and batter them until there’s nothing left? Or would you choose to build a different sand castle, one which is still going to get beat and battered by the waves, but which is going to add so much value to your life and the lives of those around you in intangible ways that it’s worth spending the time to build?

Taking Revenge

My freshman year of high school, I was chosen to be the starting pitcher for my high school baseball team. I wasn’t actually that good of a pitcher; it just so happened that I was the only one in our high school of 100 people and team of 13 who could consistently throw strikes.

A few games into the season, my team faced Miami Valley School, another team in our conference. I was called on to take the mound. They must’ve eaten their Wheaties that morning because they came ready to play. In the first two innings, they scored 11 runs on us including a multi-run homer. With one out to go in the second, my coach finally came to my rescue and pulled me from the mound. My confidence was so shaken from the massacre that I refused to pitch for the rest of the season claiming that my arm was hurting.

My sophomore year, I decided not to play. My junior year, we had a new coach and he didn’t ask me to pitch, which was just fine with me. My senior year, we got yet another new coach. Instead of asking everyone what positions they played, he had every one try out for every position. I was still so scarred from the Miami Valley experience that when it was my turn to try out for pitcher, I purposely sabotaged my tryout and didn’t throw a single strike. Needless to say, he decided I wasn’t going to be one of the team’s pitchers. Meanwhile, I was still harboring a great deal of bitterness against Miami Valley for what they did to me in that game three years previously.

By the midway point of the season, our team was in trouble. All of our pitchers had sore arms and needed to save them for the games, so we didn’t have anyone to throw balls for batting practice. As the team captain, I decided to confess to my coach that I could actually pitch and made an agreement with him that I’d pitch during batting practice if, and only if, he never asked me to pitch in a game. He agreed and batting practice started.

As we got near the end of the season, I looked at the schedule and noticed that we were playing Miami Valley School for our last game. What better chance to get even than in my last career high school baseball game. So I approached my coach and asked him if he’d let me pitch in that final game. After giving it some thought, he agreed and I was set to make my season debut on the same mound in which I had made my last debut three years earlier.

As I walked to the mound, a flood of emotions came back. Like a tape from a bad dream, I could vividly see the previous game replay in my head. After allowing myself a couple moments to cope with my nightmare, I gathered myself together and began what would become the best pitching outing of my career. We ended up winning the game by a large margin and I walked away with a standing ovation from the crowd. It was what some would call, “sweet revenge.”

The Biblical Perspective on Revenge

If I was faced with the same situation today, I don’t think I’d respond the same way I did as a senior in high school. First, I don’t think I’d sit around for three years waiting for an opportunity to seek revenge against a team that scored double digits on me. And second, I don’t think I’d feel the same desire to get even with them. It’s not that I have some higher moral code that I adhere to today that I didn’t back then; I just don’t operate that way anymore. Sometimes I talk like I operate that way, but when it comes down to it, I can’t bring myself to take revenge on someone. And I don’t see that as a bad thing.

Many years ago, there was a shepherd boy named David who won the hearts of the people after defeating their arch nemesis, a nine-foot giant by the name of Goliath. The only problem was that he wasn’t the king; a guy by the name of Saul was the king. Saul, feeling that David was a threat to his kingly position, sought to kill David.

Twice, Saul tried to impale David with a spear. David, recognizing that Saul was out to kill him, fled. And Saul pursued him time and time again. During one of Saul’s pursuits, David and his men were hiding in the back of a cave and Saul, not knowing they were there, entered the cave to take a dump. When David’s men realized it was Saul, they encouraged David to kill him. But David wouldn’t do it. Instead, David stealthily approached Saul and cut off a corner of his robe. Saul finished his business and left the cave, not knowing anything of what David had done.

After Saul was heading on his way, David came out of the cave and called to Saul, showing him the piece of his robe that had been cut off. He then said to Saul, “May the LORD judge between me and you, may the LORD avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you.”[1]

How would you have responded in that situation? Would you have taken the opportunity to kill Saul so that he wouldn’t kill you? Or would you have let him go scot free like David did?

That’s probably a hard question to answer. So let’s put it in modern day terms. Let’s say you’re in a meeting with your boss and a group of high level managers. And let’s say one of the managers asks your boss why something didn’t get done correctly and instead of taking ownership of it, he decides to blame it on you and throw you under the bus, even though it wasn’t your fault. I imagine most of us would be bitter towards our boss and be actively searching for an opportunity to get revenge.

But that’s not what David did. He didn’t attempt to get revenge on Saul because he didn’t see vengeance as something that belonged to him; he saw vengeance as something that belonged to God: “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.”[2] That’s a starkly different way of looking at it than the way in which most of us are accustomed. Most of us think it’s our responsibility to get even with people who wrong us. That was the approach David’s buddies took. They were ready for him to seal the deal and get his revenge. But David trusted God as the righteous judge, not himself. Therefore, even when he had an opportunity to take revenge, he didn’t do it.

Up until a couple years ago, I would’ve been in the same camp as David’s buddies. If I was David, I would’ve killed Saul, reasoning that God had given my enemy into my hands to do with him whatever I wanted. But now, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do it. Even if it was something much less life-threatening like my boss throwing me under the bus, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do something in order to try to get even.

Here’s the problem with seeking revenge. First, we elevate ourselves to the spot of a judge; we believe it’s within our power to issue punishment to someone based on the wrongs they’ve done to us. As the biblical writers tells us, we aren’t judges; God is the judge. If one of us has been elected or appointed to a position of a judge, that’s a different story. These people need to give righteous judgment. But most of us aren’t in that position, so we have no right to elevate ourselves to that position. And second, in the end, revenge accomplishes nothing productive. It may offer a miniscule amount of instant gratification, but in the long run, the only thing it does is create a larger relational chasm between you and the other person. Is it worth it?

Are We Called to Be Pushovers?

At this point, you may be wondering if that means God calls us to be pushovers. I don’t think so. Jesus wasn’t a pushover. And I don’t think we’re called to be one either. So here are my thoughts in answer to this question.

Although getting even with someone is not appropriate, I think it is appropriate to send a message to someone who is trying to push us around. And I think there’s a stark difference between the two. I’ll give you an example. When I was in sixth grade, there was a kid in my class who randomly enjoyed picking on me. Most days I tried to ignore it, but one day I decided I’d had enough. While I was trading books at my locker, he walked by and shut my locker on me. With only four minutes between classes and three numbers to cycle through on my combination lock, I didn’t have time to waste opening my locker for a second time. So instead of fiddling with the locker, I followed him out of the locker bay, positioned myself in such a way that he was between me and the wall, and then I gave him a full on body check into the wall. I wasn’t trying to get even; I was trying to communicate a simple message: Stop messing with me. I’m pretty sure he got the message because that was the last time he picked on me.

As an adult, I don’t suggest body checking people into walls as a way of communicating a message. I’m sure you can come up with some other, more mature ways to deal with these types of situations. My point, however, is that sometimes it can be very productive to send a simple message to someone who’s trying to push us around. I would highly encourage this approach over trying to get even.

–

Have you encountered situations where you sought to take revenge on someone? How did it go? Is there someone on whom you’re actively seeking to take revenge? What might be a more productive approach?

---

[1] 1 Samuel 24:12.

[2] Deuteronomy 32:35.

Dealing with Holiday Stress

As of today, Christmas is only 27 days away. And of course, there’s tons of shopping, planning, and traveling to take place in the Pierce household between now and the New Year. Since I missed out on all the great deals this past week, I guess I’m going to have to spend the big bucks to finish my Christmas shopping!

I’ve noticed that during the end-of-year holiday season, everyone seems to act differently. They’re more stressed, more rushed, less patient, and less available. When I step back and think about how my behaviors change, I realize I don’t want to be like that. I don’t like the person I become.

I wonder if most of us have ever considered whether we really want to live this way. And I wonder if we’ve ever considered whether we can do something to make things different. I encourage you to think through these two questions and draw your own conclusions. In the meantime, I’ll share mine.

Do I Really Want to Live This Way?

No! I don’t want to live this way. It’s absolutely crazy.

Americans seem to value Thanksgiving and Christmas for various reasons. For me, Thanksgiving is valuable because I get a chance to spend time with some of my family members thanking God for all he’s given to us, including yummy turkey, mashed potatoes, and yes, even green bean casserole. And I value Christmas because I get a chance to spend time with some of my family members to remember and celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus, whose payment has brought us into fellowship with God. Many others in my family share the same sentiments, so it works out really well for all of us.

But there are also other traditions we hold which seem like they’re not worth the personal cost. A great example of this is gift giving. Every year we all stress out about what to get for each other, but I think if you asked all of us, you’d find that the thing we value the most about Christmas is spending time together, not giving gifts. Why do we continue to let gift giving burden us year after year? Why can’t we simply gather together for Christmas like we do for Thanksgiving to enjoy each other’s company?

I get that some people look forward to some of their yearly traditions, such as gift giving. And honestly, there’s nothing unethical or wrong about it. If that’s something you and your family enjoy doing, go for it. The question we need to ask is this: Are our traditions controlling us? And if they are, do we need to consider doing something different?

Can I Do Something Different?

This raises another question: Do we even have the power to do something different? It’s one thing to say that we want things to be different, but it’s another to actually make it different. When it comes down to it, I think we have a lot more power than we realize to do something differently.

If we want to see change happen, probably the best place to start is with our immediate families. For example, Amy and I usually don’t buy gifts for each other specifically for Christmas. That doesn’t mean we don’t buy stuff for each other throughout the year, because we do, but we give them when we buy them rather than saving everything up to give all at one time. We’ve found that the spontaneity of it makes it much more meaningful and impactful than saving them all up for one day. And it greatly reduces our stress levels during this season.

However, change is never easy. It’s very difficult to change a tradition that people, especially family members, have been doing for years. Even in your immediate family, you may find that proposing a change to a tradition is met with much resistance. If you’re set on making a change in order to provide added benefit for the family that’s met with resistance, then I’d suggest taking baby steps to get there rather than trying to make a drastic change all at once. Drastic changes rarely work well.

It’s okay to make some changes to enable all of you to focus on what you want to focus on and let the other stuff go that doesn’t help to accomplish that objective. This is my encouragement for us during the upcoming holiday season.

–

Do you really want to continue living this way every December? Or do you want something to change? What can you do to bring about some change so that you and your family are less stressed this year?

The Deceptive Dream

You spent your life pursuing the American Dream. When you graduated from high school, you went to college and got a degree that would help you be successful in a corporate environment. After college, you landed a job working for a Fortune 500 company. Every couple years, you moved into a different position to get experience throughout the company. During this time, you worked your fingers to the bone wrapping your arms around your job and managed to succeed at every facet of your positions. In time, you found yourself being selected as the CEO of the company. For ten years, you ran the company, making huge decisions that impacted thousands of peoples’ lives. Then you opted to retire at age 62 and move to southern Florida where you hope to have many more years to kick back, relax, and enjoy the fruit of your labors.

At age 70, if you were to step back and ask yourself whether it was worth it, what would be your conclusion? Although you’re most likely not in this place, imagine for a minute that you are. Imagine that you were a successful businessman who rose to the position of CEO of a Fortune 500 company and that you’re now a retired Floridian. For the remainder of this article, I will be asking some questions that will hopefully help you to not only determine the direction you’re currently going, but also assist in helping you find the path you actually want to take in your life.

What Did You Gain?

Amy’s parents live in Naples, Florida and we usually visit them every year around Christmas. During our visits, we’ve been on a couple boat tours that have taken us by some homes that are in the $20 to $50 million price range. These homes are truly mansions. But that’s not what’s really at the heart of why they cost so much. The same house somewhere in Ohio wouldn’t cost $20 to $50 million. They’re so expensive because they’re located in a gated community that is situated on the water. The residents have quick and easy access to the ocean by walking out their back doors and taking a short boat ride through the bay. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the boats they use to get to the ocean are multi-level, multi-million dollar yachts. As you can imagine, these people have lots of money!

Is this your dream? Do you dream of owning a $50 million home and a multi-million dollar yacht? If this was you, what would be your daily routine? Would you get up well after sunrise, grab a cup of coffee and sit by your private pool to read the latest news, grab a quick lunch, take your boat out for an afternoon joy ride, eat dinner, wind down in front of the television with a good sporting event, go to sleep, and then get up and do it all over again?

I have to be honest–If this was my life for a couple days, I’d gladly take it, especially if someone else fixed all my meals. But if this was how I had to spend every day of the rest of my life, I’d absolutely hate it. Do you know how bored I’d be? I can’t even image how mundane it would be to wake up every day and do the same things over and over and over again. I’d probably die in a couple years out of sheer lack of mental stimulation.

Is it exhilarating to live in a mansion? I guess maybe some people think it is. The best part for me would be that I could spend time in a different room every day for a whole month and probably not get through all the rooms. But after a while, all thirty-plus rooms in my mansion would be just as commonplace as a one bedroom apartment. It’d lose the excitement. Owning a multi-million dollar yacht would also be pretty cool, at least for a little while. But like with the house, it’d lose its excitement and I’d get bored with it. After a while, I’d learn all its limitations and become disillusioned with it. Having my own private pool out back would be pretty awesome too, especially if I didn’t have to clean it. But again, after a while, I’m pretty sure it’d lose its excitement and I’d get bored with it.

So if I retired at age 62, by the time I was 70, I think I’d be pretty bored with all the stuff I had gained from becoming a slave to my job and working my fingers to the bone for forty years. What good would it be at that point? What would I really gain from my forty years of labor?

I ask you to consider the same questions. If you managed to get all this same stuff, would the excitement of it eventually wear off? Would you eventually get bored with it? Would it give you happiness for the rest of your life? Or would you reach a point where it fails to continue to keep you happy?

Our Ultimate Goal

I don’t think we pursue all this stuff just because we want the stuff; I think we pursue the stuff because of what we hope to gain from it: personal happiness. We hold out hope that this stuff will make us happy not just now, but for many years to come. Maybe your experiences have been different than mine, but my experiences with just a small fraction of this stuff have led me to believe that although some of it has the ability to make me happy for a short period of time, none of it has the ability to keep me happy me for a long period of time.

I’ll prove it to you. Think back through your experiences. When you were younger and first began eating chewable foods, you didn’t know the difference crappy food and gourmet food. But as you got older, you began to experience different tastes and recognized that some food was so much more flavorful than other food. For example, after you’ve eaten a fresh steak at a fancy restaurant in the Midwest, you can never go back to eating the crappy steaks at Outback Steakhouse. For a while, the crappy Outback steaks made you pretty happy, but after eating a Mitchell’s steak, it no longer makes you happy. However, you’d run into the same issue with Mitchell’s steaks if you ate them every single day? Would they continue to make you happy in the same way they did the first time? After a while, you’d get tired of them.

In the same way, at some point in time, all the stuff we currently have made us happy. But most of this stuff no longer makes us happy. Why would a better version make us happier? Maybe it would offer some instant gratification, but in the long run, wouldn’t you be back in the same spot where you are now; wouldn’t you reach a point where the better version would no longer make you happy? So you upgrade to the next version and then to the next version and eventually you have the best version that’s available. Won’t the happiness it provides eventually wear off as well? Of course it will. If we can’t be happy with a little, what makes us think we’ll be happy with a lot?

Based on this conclusion, here’s my encouragement to you: Stop being a slave to your job and working your fingers to the bone so that if you happen to live long enough to retire, you can purchase a $50 million house and private yacht in southern Florida. I don’t see how the gains can outweigh the costs, especially when you’d have to give up deep relationships with your family, friends, and God, in order to make it happen.

My Alternative

What would I encourage you to do instead? Here are my thoughts.

Happiness is not found in gaining everything nor is it found in giving up everything. According to Paul and countless other people throughout the history of humanity, eternal happiness is to be found in knowing the creator of the universe, not in the stuff he created. As Paul also once wrote, “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 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…”[1] By gaining Christ, Paul gained happiness.[2]

At that point, Paul’s happiness was no longer contingent upon succeeding in his career so that he could own a large mansion and private yacht in southern Florida. He could be in prison, shipwrecked on an island, or even suffering torturous floggings, yet he was still happy. Wouldn’t you like to experience that type of happiness too, a type of happiness which isn’t contingent upon your situation? If this is what you want, stop chasing after all those other deceptions like careers, wealth, 401k’s, mansions, and yachts and start chasing after Jesus. He says “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”[3]

Lest you think I’m making this stuff up based on some personal delusion, here are three quotes from others throughout history who have said the exact same thing:

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.[4]

There once was in man a true happiness of which now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.[5]

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too week. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.[6]

My encouragement to you is to give up chasing after the American Dream and instead, chase after Jesus. It’s the only pursuit I will, with 100 percent certainty, say you can chase and not be disappointed with the results.

–

Have you found something that keeps you happy day after day, or do you find that you have to continue moving from one thing to the next in order to continue finding happiness? What are the people around you experiencing? What can you learn from their pursuits of happiness? Have you considered trying to gain Jesus instead?

---

[1] Philippians 3:7-8.

[2] In Philippians 4:11, he referred to it as contentment.

[3] Jeremiah 29:13.

[4] Psalm 16:11.

[5] Blaise Pascal, Pascal’s Pensees, trans. W. F. Trotter (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958), 113, thought #425.

[6] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1980), 26.

Why Did Martin Luther Start the Protestant Reformation?

A year ago today marked the 500 year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. This date marked the beginning of the end of the sovereign reign of the Roman Catholic Church upon Western culture. Since this time, Christianity, which up until that point had been fairly united,[1] has taken on many different expressions and beliefs.

What most people don’t realize is that Martin Luther didn’t intend to separate himself from the Roman Catholic Church. And what most people also don’t realize are the beliefs that Luther held about God, humans, and salvation. In this article, I will be sharing why, based on my research, I believe Luther started the Protestant Reformation, and the primary way in which his soteriological (doctrine of salvation) beliefs were distinguished from those taught by the Roman Catholic Church.

Luther’s Revelation

Martin Luther was on his way to becoming a lawyer, but had a close encounter with death which frightened him into becoming an Augustinian monk. He quickly rose to become professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg in Germany.[2] But Luther was unsettled about something.

Luther strove for perfection, otherwise known as holiness. He took the monastic discipline as seriously as humanly possible. Yet, in his exhausting attempts to make himself holy, he still recognized the great magnitude of his sin compared to the righteousness of God.

To compound his distress, the gospel seemed like nothing more than bad news to a bunch of sinful people. As Luther read Paul’s letter to the Romans, this partial verse stood out to him: “In [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed…”[3] Luther had been taught that this verse meant God had sent Jesus to earth to reveal the full and terrible reality of his divine righteousness, which in turn revealed the horrific state of humanity’s unrighteousness.[4] Where was the good news in this message, especially when humanity needed to “do their best,” which was first and foremost an act of the will to love God, in order to earn God’s grace and favor?[5] As Luther once wrote about this verse:

As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath![6]

The word “gospel” by definition means “good news.” How was this gospel good news?

But by God’s grace and mercy, Luther’s eyes were opened to understand Paul’s intentions when he wrote this statement. The full verse is, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”[7] As Luther then wrote:

There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith.[8]

In other words, God, although a fair and just judge, ascribes Jesus’s righteousness to his people, not because of anything they’ve done to earn to it (their unrighteousness makes them completely unworthy of it), but because he chose to do it. This means the faith by which they receive it is also a gift from God. Now, this was good news. It was good news that Jesus paid for the sins of a bunch of unrighteous sinners so that they could be offered the free gift of his righteousness.

Luther’s 95 Theses

This revelation led Luther into further questioning of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. For example, if righteousness isn’t something that can be earned, then why were people offered an opportunity to purchase indulgences from the church in order to “earn” their way out of purgatory faster? Early in 1517, Luther constructed 97 theses for debate at the university which was a common practice at the time. To Luther’s disappointment, his 97 theses garnered little attention.[9]

Later that year, on October 31, 1517, he constructed his famous 95 theses and sent a copy to his bishop and Prince Albert, one of the archbishops. A copy also fell into the hands of a man who owned a printing press who saw its marketing potential, mass produced it, and had it distributed throughout Germany. Luther’s stances in his 95 theses were relatively conservative as he spent most of it addressing the issue of selling indulgences; he did not question the authority of the pope or the existence of purgatory.[10]

Luther did not intend to separate himself from the Roman Catholic Church, but rather, he wanted to bring reform to it. But in the years shortly following, the church continued to alienate him more and more and reached a climax in 1521 at the Diet of Worms (a trial). Luther was put on the stand and asked to recant of his new beliefs. After refusing to recant, he was declared a heretic and excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.

For the rest of his life, Luther continued to alienate himself further and further from the Roman Catholic Church. He put much of the institution into question, including the authority of the pope, and even went so far as to call the Roman Catholic Church the Antichrist prophesied in the New Testament.[11]

Martin Luther’s impact continues well beyond his lifetime, specifically his doctrine of salvation. It very quickly spread throughout Europe and impacted the theology of many contemporary reformers including John Calvin, the first Protestant to write a comprehensive book of theology. Protestants owe much of their doctrinal beliefs to the work of these two men.

–

How has Martin Luther’s legacy impacted your life?

---

[1] At that time, Christianity had already suffered one major division during the schism of 1054 when the Eastern Orthodox Church broke off from the Roman Catholic Church. In Europe, the church was still united due to the quick arrest and at times, death, of all people who expressed disagreement with the Roman Catholic Church.

[2] Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 155.

[3] Romans 1:17a.

[4] Mark A. Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 150.

[5] Lane, A Concise History, 155.

[6] Martin Luther, “Preface to Latin Writings,” in Luther Works, 55 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1955-76, 34:336-37.

[7] Romans 1:17.

[8] Luther, “Preface to Latin Writings,” 34:336-37.

[9] Lane, A Concise History, 155.

[10] Ibid., 156.

[11] Ibid.

How Comfort is Robbing You of Joy

What comforts do you desire? Do you desire a temperature-controlled house? Do you desire a predictable, relaxed, stable, forty-hour-a-week job? Do you desire heated seats in your SUV? Do you desire cushy, padded seats at church? Do you desire a lightning fast computer? Do you desire clean, private restrooms? None of these things are bad things. Comfort, in general, isn’t a bad thing. It can serve to keep us healthy in many ways.

But as I evaluate my own life experiences, I observe that some of the greatest joy I’ve experienced has been during times when I’ve been the least comfortable. I experienced joy during the service-oriented trips with my high school youth group that I reluctantly attended. I experienced joy when I moved up from C league to B league in hockey. I experienced joy when I gave up my stable jobs and started my own business. I experienced joy when I gave up the comforts of Churchianity and became a missionary to the people of Findlay. Isn’t that ironic? Comfort, the very thing in which many of us trust to provide us with joy, actually seems to be robbing us of it. Let’s take a closer look.

Sandbaggers Lack Joy

Sandbagger: A player who deliberately misrepresents and downplays his ability in order to derive an advantage over his opponents. Those of you who have played recreational sports are all too familiar with these people. They find their way into lower-skilled divisions because it’s more comfortable to play there than to be pushed outside of their comfort zones in higher-skilled divisions.

Personally, I’ve played in a few recreational hockey games where my skills were quite obviously superior to the skills of the people on the other team. Honestly, those games weren’t much fun for me. I can remember one in particular where I scored a breakaway backhand shot to the top corner of the net and we handily won the game. You would’ve thought I was overjoyed with the outcome, but as I drove home that night, I felt very dissatisfied.

Why? What was wrong with me? Wasn’t the level of comfort I felt in that game, the sweet goal I scored, and the win my team achieved supposed to give me joy? Why did I still feel dissatisfied?

Conversely, in the summer of 2015, I played on a team where I was one of the least-skilled players on the ice. We lost every single game that season and I struggled to get on the scoreboard, yet I experienced a lot of joy.

Sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? We would think that the more we stay in our comfort zones, the more joy and satisfaction we would experience. Yet it seems to be just the opposite. It seems that the greatest joy is found when we’re taken outside of our comfort zones.

I’ve discovered that this same principle applies throughout every area of my life. When I’ve been challenged to step outside of the comfort zone of my temperature-controlled house, stable job, and padded seat, the floodgates of joy opened around me.

God’s Role in Our Joy

I would fail to paint the entire picture here if I failed to share about God’s role in our joy. Yes, I think there is a level of joy which can be found when we overcome challenging situations. But personally, the greatest amount of joy I’ve experienced has come during times when I’ve been completely dependent on God to bring me through my challenging situations, including the strength he’s provided me to play hockey at a higher level.

I’ve heard many Christians, even in the last week, say, “God won’t give us more than we can handle.” First of all, that’s not what the Bible says. It actually says:

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.[1]

In this passage, Paul was explaining that he was burdened beyond his strength. In other words, he was given more than he could handle. But then he goes on to say that the reason he was given more than he could handle was so that he could rely on God and his strength rather than on his own strength.

And second, if Paul’s experiences are similar to those of other people, which I think they are, then it wouldn’t be in our best interest for God to allow us to continue living in our comfort zones. Paul experienced great joy in his life, even though he went through more hardship than anyone can personally handle. He survived being stoned, was flogged five times, was beaten with rods three times, was shipwrecked three times, and was in constant danger.[2] Do you think that was more than he could handle? Of course it was. But as he wrote in his letter to the Corinthian church, by facing all these hardships, he was forced to rely on God to get him through them. And it was in the process of relying on God that he found joy in God.

When we live in our comfort zones, we have no need for God. Why would we if we can do it all on our own strength? But doing things on our own strength only gives us, at best, a minimal amount of joy. It promises to completely satisfy us, but it fails every time. It’s when we trust in God’s strength to make it through and then watch him come through that we experience great amounts of joy.

Don’t let comfort continue to rob you of joy. Let God take you out of your comfort zone, watch what he can do, and soak in the joy that can be found in him.

–

Have you experienced this contrast between comfort and joy? In what ways might God be calling you out of your comfort zone so that he can give you more joy in him?

---

[1] 2 Corinthians 1:8-9.

[2] 2 Corinthians 11:23-29.

Lessons from My Current Trials

I don’t know about you, but instinctively, I hate pretty much everything having to do with confrontation. I waste way too much time thinking about exactly what I’m going to say, it emotionally drains me, and sometimes I walk away feeling worse than I did before I started. The only time I somewhat like confrontation is when it enables me and the other person to enter into a deeper relationship with one another.

In the past couple months, I’ve faced one confrontational encounter after another. One that really stands out which isn't sensitive in nature is a confrontation, or rather a series of confrontations, I had with my new wireless phone provider. They made a bunch of promises in order to get me to switch to their service, but after I signed the papers, they haven’t been the least bit concerned about whether they come through on their promises. Since signing up for their service, I’ve talked to about 10 different people to try to get everything straightened out. Absolutely ridiculous and completely draining for someone like me who hates confrontation.

If all of my recent confrontational encounters were tied back to one primary aspect of my life, such as my cell phone bill, then I probably wouldn’t have thought about it any deeper. But they’re not. I’m experiencing confrontational encounters in seemingly every area of my life.

When my series of confrontational encounters began, I saw these situations as nothing more than aggravating burdens. I held out hope that the confrontations would end soon and I could go back to living in my non-confrontational comfort zone. But after continuing to see it pop up over and over again, I began wondering if maybe there was something more to it. In the past couple days, I’ve come to recognize that my current situation is a great example of what the biblical writers were referring to when they wrote about fiery trials. I see now that God is testing me. Like a goldsmith, he’s putting me in the fire so that more of my impurities rise to the surface so that he can scrape them off and rid them from my life. I’m now seeing that these trials are not only from God, but they’re a gift he’s given me. How’s that possible?

God’s plan is to transform us completely into his image. If we were given the option to choose how this transformation happens, I think most of us would choose for God to magically bestow this transformation upon. We’d choose to go to bed at night untransformed and wake up the following morning being completely transformed. But for whatever reason, God hasn’t chosen to work that way. Instead, he’s chosen to throw us into the fiery furnace over and over again so that our impurities, which slowly rise to the surface, can be scraped away every time he pulls us back out.

At the present time, I’m not exactly sure what impurities God intends to remove through these confrontational trials. Maybe he’s intending to remove more of my pride. Maybe he’s intending to remove more of my reliance on the affirmation of others to define my value. Maybe he’s intending to deepen some of my relationships. I don’t know.

It can be extremely challenging to accept our trials (not that our rejection or acceptance is going to change God’s mind) when we don’t know God’s intentions through them. If we could see a few years, or even just a few months into the future so that we could see how our situations today will positively impact us in the future, it seems like that would at least make the trials a bit more bearable now. Sometimes God does give me a glimpse into why he’s doing what he’s doing. But right now, I can honestly say that I don’t know his intentions.

Nonetheless, I have no less faith in him and no more anxiety about the situation because of my lack of insider information. I’m 100 percent certain that God is fully in control and trust that his current testing, although painful and difficult to bear at times, is serving to bring glory to his name and transform me more into his image.

I’ll wrap up with a light story. I have to laugh sometimes at God’s incessant humor. Last week when our missional community was gathered together, we were discussing a few chapters from Ecclesiastes and the topic of fiery trials came up. After we all agreed that we’ve noticed God’s transformation the most during our fiery trials, I asked why we don’t ask God for more trials. Seriously, if facing more fiery trials is going to get us closer to reaching our goal of being transformed into his image, then why wouldn’t we want more of them? When I volunteered to close in prayer at the end of our time together, I prayed for God to give us more fiery trials. Look what happened…God answered my prayer! Haha.

Honestly, we shouldn’t be surprised when we’re faced with difficult situations that push us outside of our comfort zones. It’s written all over the Bible that this is going to happen.[1] How are we going to respond? Are we going to respond with conditional faith which needs to know exactly what’s going to happen and how it’s all going to work out before we submit to God’s plan? Or are we going to respond with unconditional faith which submits to God’s plan, even when it doesn’t make sense?

---

[1] A few examples are 1 Peter 4:12-13, James 1:2-4, Isaiah 48:9-11, Psalm 66:10-12, and Revelation 3:18.