Hi!
My name is Andrew and I love to be right. It doesn't matter the situation, and it doesn't matter the topic. Life is a game and if being right is the scorecard, then I want to win. What's odd about my desire to be "right" is that it doesn't really matter. This truth came home to me in a big way recently.
I have been filling out a job application that wanted a job history first and then a place for education, address, etc. As I started my job history I realized that I haven't really been very amazing. Oh I have done things, but nothing out of the ordinary. I have skills but so do a lot of other people. It was really telling that my ego was deflated based on an expectation of someone reading a job history of mine. In reality I felt lame. I looked at what I had accomplished, compared myself to others, and saw how little I have really accomplished. I looked at my life for a second and realized how much I use my intellect to insulate me from my fears. Sometimes even writing (because I know I have some ability there) is me trying hard to be smart, to be cool, to be right. How pathetic.
The reality is that fear often motivates me more than love. The reality is I live in a dumpy basement apartment crammed with different piles of books I am currently reading (or was a month ago) random papers, and Rubbermaid tubs of clothing because I don't have room for a dresser. When people ask me how school is going I say "Fine", or "Good" because I can't describe how awful I am at deadlines. Even the name deadlines is crazy. If you don't meet them...you die! Gahhh! I fear failure at school not because it is hard, but because I gave up and quit several years ago. That quitting haunts me a bit and is a weird emotional snafu that comes up at the most inopportune times. Now I get to work full time and go to school, not because I want to but because I have to. Yuck.
Between my hang ups, fears, random self loathing, and slightly crazy life I defend myself by being right and having answers. This was all blown apart on a recent trip to Alaska. I talked to a buddy who has had three major catastrophes in his life. He asked questions that I realized if I tried to answer or give some sort of solution to or try to "fix" his problems I'd say things that would in reality be stupid. There was no "right" answer. This wasn't an academic challenge or a debate. This was real life come screaming into my buddy's life and into mine. Pain. Real, tangible, heaviness in the room you can feel, nothing you can do about it, pain. His pain was felt by me in a very real way and it exposed all my stupid, desires to be right and all the stupid walls I put up for exactly what they were. What do you do with that? I could be "right" all day long and my friend, who I love, is still sitting there in emotional agony.
So I gave up. I just sat there and listened and tried to be a friend without any stupid easy answers that sound trite in the face of cancer, divorce, betrayal, loss and death. I just reminded him of truth. That this is a crappy world full of sin and death. That it is so crappy God sent His perfect Son and people can't stand Christ so they kill him. The beauty of it is that even though people are God's enemies and killed Christ God showed His power and raised him from the dead and through that death forgives us and invites us to be adopted into His family. That is where true hope lies.
Otherwise I live in a harsh loveless place, powerless, without any control over anything. If you don't believe that watch Instinct with Anthony Hopkins. There is some good psychological stuff in there about control.
I choose to believe in the reality of hope in Christ and a good God who goes out of His way to love us. In the end me being "right" won't solve anything, builds up my own pride, and in the face of the difficulties of life really doesn't matter. Time to give up the self serving game for something better called love.
Challenge: When difficult things happen in life where is your hope? Put up a post I'd love to hear about it.
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