I matured in the era of the self-help book. I was a young adult, learning and charting my course, surrounded by a culture of instruction. It was everywhere, daytime television, books, classes, businesses… everywhere you ran into a basic formula. Do A,B,C and you will have a happy marriage. Do A,B,C and you will be successful in business. Do A,B,C your children will turn out and be wondeful. Do A,B,C and you will find inner peace.
Even churches did this. They abandoned generations of culture and learning to adopt the new step by step guide to getting to your desired destination. Correct doctrine – check. Appropriate levels of faith – check. Trust God – check. Be as prefect as you can be – check. Attend all the right services – check. Offer the right services in the community – check. Of course not every church was like this, but many were.
I am not suggesting for even a moment, that any of these ideas on their own are bad. It is the concept that we can live our lives by rote, by list, by ticking off all the boxes, that I strongly object to. As a young adult I stressed over every single decision, sure that every move I made would propel me on the right path or would take me off onto the wrong path. This belief was in the air I breathed.
Life is far more complex than that. Wisdom can’t be distilled into a list of dos and donts. No amount of planning can predict the future or prevent the chaos caused by our past. Life is messy. Humans are messy.
The best I can do is build my foundation on belief in God. When I do that I am anchoring myself to the Creator. I am drawing on His wisdom. I lean on His strength and guidance.
1 Corinthians 3: 18-19 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness.”
Roberta Writes 