Approval: From Where?

“Human history is the long, terrible, story of humankind trying to find something other than God to make us happy.” – C.S. Lewis.

Years ago, a friend of mine was working for a college ministry. He was mentoring a guy who was not a Jesus follower, but this man enjoyed their chats. On one occasion, the mentee told the mentor that he didn’t know what to do. He says, “yeah, I’ve been tasked to help furnish and design Taylor Swift’s penthouse……” <ok, stop right there, pretty punk rock, huh?>

This mentee is talking to Taylor’s mom and told her he’d been meeting with this pastor guy. Taylor’s mom has been really wanting her to come back to her faith and asked if she could get the pastor guy’s number. “What did you say?” my friends asks. “I gave her your number, and she passed it onto Taylor.” “When was this?!” my friend asked…..”Oh, 4-5 days ago.” From there, my friend looks back on all his missed calls. For the next 4-5 days, whenever a number came up on his phone he didn’t recognize, he’d answer with, “yes, Taylor?” She never did call, but why share that story?

It’s because everyone of us has a desire for recognition, a sense of importance, to feel special, approved of, or wanted. Simply put, here are (below) a few questions for us all:

• Where do you go when you’re insecure to feel secure?
• To whom or to what do you look for approval, to be liked, or to be right or whole?
• From where do you draw your value from?

If you’re more skeptical, the great philosopher (Blaise Pascal) captures it best in this way. Pay close attention to his words:

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, reveal but that there was once in us a true happiness, and now what remains is the empty print and trace? We try in vain to fill it with everything around us, seeking in things the help we cannot find, since none can help (fully), because this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite object; in other words, by God himself.” – Blaise Pascal, Pensées VII (425)

Luke 18:9-14

Pascal’s comments punctuate that this inner coil we feel is not only a contemporary complexity, but an ancient ache that resides in all of us. Following the heading, if I had to choose one of a few passages to describe what God has done in me in the last 8-years, it would be the passage that is emboldened.

If you have a moment, take a read of the passage. How’d it go?  What did you observe?

This story doesn’t shock us today, because of our and their cultural context. This matters, because as my wife so brilliantly observed:

“I’m so much like the Pharisee, but for some on their journey with Jesus, depending on their background or where they begin, some could start as the Tax Collector, but ever so gradually dip into the Pharisee’s posture.”

Isn’t she so observant and humble?! Her observations flow very closely with our theme. This parable reminds us that even the most religious person can miss the purpose, the goal of life. The text invites us to discover God as a loving Father and “that tax collector”…..whoever they might be…….is an image-bearer of God…….who might teach us a thing or two. As you read the parable, this is the propensity of the heart: to justify ourselves. This is not a left or right wing thing or a religious thing, it is a human thing.

Looking at v.9, that word “righteousness”, is not a word we use all that often today, except to say they are being too ‘preachy,’ or they are ‘self-righteous.’ It’s fascinating to watch the attitudes of our American culture towards people like Justin Bieber. Before, he was polarizing and lauded for various things. Yet, as he professes faith in Jesus – now – he’s too ‘preachy.’ That attitude is a way of being approved, to distance ourselves from others, or to feel good about ourselves. To have righteousness, to be accepted. And that’s what, in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek ‘thought’, the language of the Scripture means: “to be approved of, to pass inspection, to be accepted.”

Do you see it? “Really, Greg? Taylor Swift and Bieber in the same blog post?” You’ll remember it though! In short, did you notice that the Pharisee used the personal pronoun “I” five times? This is why, when we try to get approval, righteousness, or acceptance ourselves, we become less of ourselves. We harden ourselves. We become more evil and are closed off to others. Now, that’s not to say there isn’t a healthy/holy self-image (Matt. 22:37-40). At the same time, when we are faced with pressures, scrutiny, or are feeling insecure……where do we go?

Here’s the crux of it: if you spot something in someone else you do not like, the psychologists tell us “you spot it, you got it!” I’m learning all other ground is sinking sand. And, this is what sets the way of Jesus apart. In every part of your life, you have to achieve to receive. Yet, in Jesus you have an identity that is not achieved but received. That’s what led Brennan Manning to say: “Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is an illusion.” (Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

This is what provides stability and not fragility. This is eternal, not temporal. This is heavenly, not earthly. The life lived by Jesus was one that you and I could not live. And He accomplished for us, on the cross and up from the grave, a greater victory and a greater approval than we could have ever given ourselves. Jesus atoned (2 Cor. 5:21), made us clean and right with God, others, and our truest selves by his life, death, and resurrection. No other philosophy, self-love, or therapy will give you that. Returning to our beginning question(s): where do you go when your insecure to feel secure? To whom or to what do you look for approval, to be liked, or to be right or whole? From where do you draw your value?

The response to our contemporary complexities, the absurdities of our contradictions, the sin that so easily entangles is….humility. Humility as represented in this passage and in Phil 2:4-13. Remember…..

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”