Usefulness, Approval and Agape: Part 2

About 2 months ago, I wrote about love being some combination of approval and usefulness, and how my sense of worth has been rocked lately by an unshakable sense that I have become both unnecessary and undesirable, both unneeded and unwanted.  Combine this with a perpetual fear that I either am currently or are in danger of failing to meet people’s expectations of me, and it’s no wonder sometimes I wish the drugs were stronger.  As I type this, and reflect on my last 2 weeks, I realize how deeply I’ve allowed work-related stressors to impact my mental health and stability, and how insidious and powerful is my fear of not meeting expectations—particularly when there are multiple, competing expectations which intersect and exponentially increase the likelihood that I will fail to meet them all.  In my personal life I am becoming obsolete and faded in my roles as mother and wife; in my professional life, the expectations for perfect crystal plate juggling of priorities are only increasing with rank and the burden of past successes.  Taken together, the end result is that more of my identity is—without even conscious thought—receiving more weight from work-related efforts, so that as stress increases at work the unconsciously perceived result is that my entire identity and emotional stability is at greater risk from work failures.  

...my sense of worth has been rocked lately by an unshakable sense that I have become both unnecessary and undesirable, both unneeded and unwanted....with a perpetual fear that I ... am failing to meet people’s expectations of me....

There.  That’s a revelation actually, something that has been true for 2 weeks but not realized until I just wrote it.  

Possible solutions include:  diversify where I receive positive reinforcement and a sense of value; intentionally, consciously de-emphasize the potential impacts of what I’m doing at work (will anyone die?  Is safety at risk?  Am I hurting people because of concern over things?); recognize that how I am needed or wanted by my family is not less but rather is different with age and time; find increased value in how other people want or need their relationship with me, diversify my relationships particularly friendships.  

The friendship piece was part of where I concluded my writing last time, but also felt inadequate to build friendships with the paltry sense of self-worth and emotional stability I possess. I think I still feel that way.  I think I do need to much more consciously ask the question, when I am feeling overwhelmed, ‘Who am I afraid of disappointing? In what way? What is the real impact vs what I fear?’  Simply becoming aware of those things may help diffuse the overwhelming sense of dread which is paralyzing and also leads to irrational outbursts and suffocating anger.

I also think I need to contemplate my sense of being unwanted and unneeded.  I do believe it is the best definition of a ‘midlife crisis’ as children grow up and a marriage ages.  But I think it also reflects an essential fact of the human condition. We crave love, love defined as being desired or being necessary.  If I can’t be as useful as a Kitchen-aide mixer or a pickup truck, let me be as desirable as a Picasso painting or a diamond; if I am not beautiful let me at least be helpful.  Maybe this is an over-feminized perspective, but I’m going to roll with it.  

The reality is, our usefulness and desirability are only human constructs, relevant only in discussion of love-ability and interpersonal interactions.  When it comes to human interactions with the Divine, we also want to believe that we are both needed and desired—that somehow God needs human beings, that He was incomplete without us and created the world out of that need.  We therefore want to claim some innate value before God, some way of justifying ourselves before Him.  The humbling, almost humiliating reality is that God does not need us—we serve no innate purpose for God—nor, in our fallen and sinful condition, are we desirable and loveable before Him.  God created the world and humankind as an outpouring of His love and an expression of His creative nature, not because He needed us.  And after the fall, our sinful condition made and makes us by nature abhorrent to God’s perfect and holy nature.  

In my own flesh, I am both completely superfluous and completely disgusting to God.  This is a horrifying thing to think about, a mind-numbing reality to grasp.  In my self-centeredness, I want to believe that I am loveable and desirable, that certainly there is some part of me that has innate value to God.  But this is a fallacy, a lie, house of cards ready to be blown down by the reality of my human nature and the towering perfection of God’s nature.

In my own flesh, I am both completely superfluous and completely disgusting to God. 

The Creation was good, even very good (see Genesis 1-3), but when Adam and Eve chose disobedience and the idolatry of self, all of that good Creation was twisted and corrupted by their sin.  And their sin is our sin, both our innate sinful condition and the wickedness we choose and are enslaved to.  The book of Romans talks about the wrath of God which is being revealed against all godlessness and wickedness, that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen….so that men are without excuse….”  God turned humankind over to a depraved heart, depraved acts and a depraved mind (Romans 1: 21-32, see vs 21, 26 and 28 which discuss heart, body and mind), all of which is our natural response and instinct in our natural, sinful condition.  Romans 3: 10 - 15 paraphrases Psalm 14, both say that we all—all of humanity—deny God, have turned away from Him, are corrupt; there is not one righteous person.  

We want to believe that we are tarnished silver just needing a polishing, or maybe a silk cloth with a small tear just in need of minor repairs.  Instead, we are rocks worthy only to be chucked aside, not smelted for precious ore; we are filthy rags, so soiled and torn as to be past repair.  Isaiah 64: 6 describes us as filthy rags and shriveled leaves, worthy only to be swept away.  In ourselves, in our own sinful condition, we are both undesirable and unnecessary.  We have no beauty or usefulness, only sin worthy of eternal separation from God.  We are rocks and rags worth only to be tossed into the garbage. 

My mind, my ego, rages against this truth.  I simultaneously acknowledge what I know to be true, repenting in dust and ashes of any belief that I could stand in my own righteousness and value.   And it is from this rock-bottom reality that I can accept both the reality of my own worthlessness, and understand where my true value lies.

The crux of this, the nadir from which we then ascend, is expressed in Romans 5: 8:  “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”   Or as Paul says similarly in 1 Timothy 1:15:  “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance:  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.”  

The crux of this, the nadir from which we then ascend, is..."But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

The worthiness and beauty of the rocks and the rags are not in themselves, but in the fact that they are desired by God and, through Christ, made beautiful and useful.  As I hold on to this reality and allow it to change my perspective, I can release the notion that I must be valued and desired by others because of my innate loveliness and usefulness.  The only love and value that matters is that of God, who so loved the world that He sent His only Son into the world, not to condemn it but to redeem it.  And therefore to redeem me.

Typing these words reminds me of the memorization work I did as a child, from Luther’s small catechism and his discussion of the second article of the Nicene Creed.  The Creed summarizes what Christians believe, with the second article discussing Christ Jesus: 

“And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.  He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead.  He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.” 

What does this mean?  “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.  This is most certainly true.”

This is most certainly true.  Jesus Christ “redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins….not with gold or silver but with His holy, precious blood…”.

This is my value, not in myself but in the price that was paid for my redemption—not gold or silver, but the blood of Christ.  And this is my usefulness, “that I may be his own and live under Him in everlasting righteousness….”.   A rock or a rag redeemed and transformed.  Not with intrinsic value, but imputed value, imputed righteousness, through Christ Jesus. 

The words of the hymn “My hope is built on nothing less” remind me of this.  “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.  On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.”  “….in every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil….His oath, His covenant, His blood support me in the whelming flood; when every earthly prop gives way, He then is all my hope and stay….Clothed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne!”

I am clothed only in the righteousness of Christ, not in my own value nor my own usefulness.  This is where my hope is built, my trust is founded, where my faith stands.  I can consciously reject both my desire to be loved and needed, and my fears that I am unloved and unneeded.  My value is in and through Christ Jesus.  This is how I need to start every day, begin each task, enter each interaction, found every relationship.  I bring nothing, neither do I really need anything; Christ is my identity, my value, my sustainment.  God help me to reject the self-loathing, self-doubt and the self-righteousness which I am so prone to feel; and instead to dwell on and meditate on, these truths of who I am in Christ Jesus.

I am clothed only in the righteousness of Christ, not in my own value nor my own usefulness.  This is where my hope is built, my trust is founded, where my faith stands.