We’ve Got It Bass-Ackwards

Years ago, Lending Tree created this tv ad:
While being hilarious, it hits a little too close to home.

Stanley, with a constant smile on his face, boasts of his big house, big yard, new car, pool and appears to have it all.

“I’m Stanley Johnson. I’ve got a great family. I’ve got a four-bedroom house…and a great community…Like my car? It’s new. I even belong to the local golf club. How do I do it?
I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. I can barely pay my finance charges. Somebody help me.”

This ad conveys nearly every man’s fundamental psychological inner torment.
A man’s core need is respect – to be believed in.
We associate having more, hitting it big, as being worthy of winning respect.

We are conditioned to believe that our achievements are to be great, our possessions to be many, our wealth to be substantial, our house’s square footage significant, and our fame to be widespread.

Consequently, we spend money, time and tons of mental energy on having those things that will garnish respect.
Yet interiorly we feel bankrupt.

We know, deep down that we are deriving self-value, a personal identity, from things, status, possessions, all the while believing that they give us the power to be liked, included, and even loved.
So why is it that the more we have of any of these things, the emptier we feel?

Because we know that we are not really who we are supposed to be.
We are not the “free man” who has overcome being conditioned by and defined by others.
We are slaves to human respect and that slavery robs us of the freedom of being a great son of God.

Our Lord, who is the greatest man (Godman) ever, said that the Kingdom of Heaven is tiny – like a grain of a mustard seed. (Matthew 13:31)
He also likened it to leaven in three measures of dough. (Matthew 13:33)
In other words, the Kingdom of Heaven—which is ultimately God’s inner-life, His self-giving love imparted through the Holy Spirit—is little, hidden, and silent.

We think we need to be big to gain the world’s respect…and we are correct.

But the son of God doesn’t want the world’s respect because it only restricts and enslaves him from living a life of freedom, greatness and glory—from being his true self.

The son of God knows that he is to be hagios, that is different than every other worldly man.
He is to be set apart, so that when people see him, they think,
“Man, I want what he has… I can’t buy what he has…He has something that is transcendent, a power beyond this world.”

God says as much:

“Let all who are little come to my house” says the Lord.
“Unless you be converted and become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

“Who will I [God] have respect (look upon with favor), but to him that is poor and little, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my words.” (Isa 66:2).

Notice that to have God’s favor, to have His Holy presence and power living within you, demands that you not be greater, but smaller.

How can this be?

God allows us, in the many and fragmented facets of our lives, to feel pain.
That pain is an alarm that signals we are weak, limited, insufficient in ourselves, powerless.

God is trying to communicate to us, “You cannot do it yourself.” Or in bible-speak, “Without Me you can do nothing.”
Most of us ignore the alarm by sedating ourselves with comfort.
We deny it and arrogantly believe that we are better than we are (and attempt to convince others of it).
We ignore it, and rather than remaining on the path God has appointed us, we flee to find a “new way.”

You see this dynamic in marriages.
We encounter pain, tremendous pain, in our relationship with our wife.
Rather than allowing that pain to convict us of our personal poverty, that is our inability to solve the problem, we numb the pain with porn, alcohol, the Sports Channel, or we flee the path of our vocation and find a “new one,” a new girl, a new life.

Big news: there is no new life because you still have to live with your old self.

Pain allows us to encounter our personal poverty.
By acknowledging and embracing our personal poverty, we embrace and confess our littleness.
It is this helpless, little self, that is more willing to turn to God the Father.
With trust in His goodness we exercise faith that He can do something incredible with our lives even when we are apparently failing—like heal our marriage.

Recently, my daughter Anna Marie, who is confined to her wheelchair, and barely capable of moving her arms or legs, yelled to me with jubilation that a butterfly was resting on her arm.
Sure enough the butterfly peacefully rested on her forearm while spreading its wings.
I drew closer to get a better look and the butterfly flew away.
I withdrew, and the butterfly returned to rest on Anna.

Why?
Because the butterfly trusted Anna and believed that Anna would not harm it.

Anna is a symbol of the weak, little one, who attracts goodness and beauty symbolized by the butterfly.
The little one is trustworthy.

When we men are loud and proud we gain a certain attention, but it isn’t love, or true respect.
It is the little one who becomes attractive to God and to others.
And like the butterfly, other human beings can be around such a man, trusting that he is not about himself, but about the other—and that he won’t crush them with his pride.

This is the path of the greatest men, the greatest saints.
By embracing and even loving their littleness, they allowed God to transform them—and they became most attractive, and respected.