by Nate Howard
District Superintendent
It was a tough day when my dad, now 91, had to give up woodworking. Since two of his love languages are gift-giving and acts of service, his post-65 retirement years had been filled with the delight of expressing his love for family and friends by making them quality pieces of furniture. Like a saw-dusted Santa Claus, he would even pack his truck and make trips across the US to personally deliver those handcrafted items — now considered family heirlooms.
His workshop was a sight filled with quality tools. Sometimes he would take hours to practice his cuts and fine-tune those tools, so they functioned with pinpoint precision. In woodworking, practicing your cuts and adjusting your tools is a good, important thing. But the joy for my dad didn’t come from having the tool cut right. My dad’s delight came from the vision of delivering the handcrafted furniture to the family he loved. For my dad there was no confusion: organized, well-adjusted tools were a good thing, but not the ultimate thing.
Yesterday I asked two of my granddaughters what it would be like to go to a school where the only thing the teacher taught them was how to sharpen their pencils, organize their desks, and put their coats and lunchboxes in the right spot. “Silly PopPop,” they said, “you go to school to learn things.”
They are right — that kind of school would be silly. In a classroom, some semblance of order is a good thing, but it’s not the end goal of a quality education.
Do you get my point? We could talk about farmers and their implements, or professional athletes with their drills and practice — the illustrations come easy and abound. It’s obvious: there’s a difference between good things and ultimate things.
A lot of problems happen in life when that obvious truth gets fuzzy in our thinking — when values are distorted, when we lack discernment not only between what’s evil and what’s good, but also between what’s good and what’s highest.
We all agree that society disintegrates when evil is embraced as acceptable. I’m not so sure we pay as much attention when we accept and substitute a good thing for an ultimate thing - when we give our time, so to speak, to pencil sharpening and tool refinement, all the while setting aside what is most important.
To substitute a good thing for an essential thing leads to a waste of energy, time, and emotional strain. Actually, it can lead to much worse.
I wonder if that reality led Paul to pray that the Philippians would be able to “approve what is excellent” and in that way be “pure and blameless.” (Philippians 1:10)
Paul’s prayer may be pointing to a human dynamic that when our values are rightly aligned, we give our highest approval to what is highly excellent – and it shows in our actions. When our values are disordered, we give our approval and energy to something less than excellent.
Somewhere along the line, I picked up a definition of righteousness that points to that same dynamic. To be righteous, I heard, is to see, perceive, and embrace as truly important those things which are truly important. To be unrighteous is to give value to something that really is not that valuable — it’s just not right to make a big deal out of what really isn’t.
The thing about righteousness is before it shows itself in what we do, righteousness is active deep inside us and influences the way we see, perceive, judge and discern. Since righteousness is the capacity to value what is truly valuable, I’m growing in righteousness when what is really big to Jesus becomes really big to me and it changes me in the areas of life I think about the most.
It’s a good thing, not an ultimate thing …
To do a good job,
To be right,
For people to agree with me or do what I recommend,
To hear people tell me they appreciate me.
But if I live pursing those things as my end-goal, my life will be out of sync with what is truly valuable — it will be wasted … or worse.
I really enjoyed a recent read: Tempered Resilience by Tod Bolsinger. Here’s a quote that speaks to this same thing:
“One of the genuine crises of Christian leadership today is how inward focused it is. A movement founded on the salvation and transformation of the world often becomes consumed with helping a congregation, an organization, or educational institution survive, stay together, or deal with rampant anxiety.” (Bolsinger)
To survive, stay together, or deal with anxiety are often good things. But, as Bolsinger points out, turning a good thing into an ultimate thing can lead to an inward focus that veers us way off-track from God’s ultimate purposes.
If you want to process a bit more the tension between good and ultimate, here are some questions you can talk over with 1) a trusted friend, 2) your spouse/family; 3) your church leadership:
What might be most important (the ultimate purpose or goal) for your life, your family, your church?
What might be some good things that become too important for you — that might actually keep you from what is most important? (For your life, family, and church).
If “substitute obedience” means giving yourself to good things in place of ultimate things (and can actually give you a false sense of righteousness), what examples of substitute obedience do you see in your life, family, church?
I could use your prayer support as we look to help lead the Eastern PA District towards giving ourselves to what is most important.