Position
This week's study is on James 1:9-11:
I don't know why I stumbled on these particular verses this week, but they spoke to me. There are good things in any situation, whether it's one we want or one we don't. Paul uses money as his example, but it really applies to anything we might or might not be blessed with. God loves us and has something for us, even if we don't recognize it at first.
Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. What does that even mean? What are humble circumstances? I'd associate it with having only what you need and nothing more. We usually recognize that as being without something, like money, or a significant other, or fame, or power, or health, or whatever. Paul says that people in humble circumstances should take pride in their high position. How is being poor or alone or overlooked or powerless a high position?
When you're in humble circumstances, you're running efficiently. You're only spending money on what's necessary, only eating the necessary calories, only burning the minimal fuel needed to get to where you need to be. There's a rightness to it where you don't fall short or have too much. When we seem like we're not getting enough but yet we still get what we need, we're in those humble circumstances.
People have found that happiness adjusts itself to circumstances, so if you can be happy with less, you're doing better than most. Look how miserable even the richest and most powerful people can be sometimes! So if you can be overjoyed over something as simple as a taco, you're truly blessed. I've also heard that married couples are often happier in poorer circumstances because they form a kind of "us against the world" bond. People who eat a very low calorie diet have been found to live longer than people who eat the recommended amount. So there is something to be said for humble circumstances. You're the spiritual equivalent of a car that gets 150 miles to the gallon.
But then Paul flips things around and says that the rich should take pride in their humiliation, that they'll fade away into nothingness. And then it occurred to me that that's true too. Our goal as Christians isn't to get rich. We're not meant to just keep pooling money, like it's internal bleeding in Christ's body. As we grow to love more, and be happier in our circumstances, we will naturally give more away. On a long enough time line, given a perfect spiritual journey, we may go from rich and powerful all the way down to frugal and despised in the course of our lives.
Think about the people that happened to: The rich young ruler described in the gospels, told to sell everything and give it to the undeserving poor. Paul himself, a famous and well respected religious authority made into a hated heretic with a price on his head. Peter, a successful fisherman turned into an enemy of the state, eventually tortured and killed for his beliefs. Saint Francis, the spoiled heir to a fortune, turned penniless and naked. Paul tells us to take pride in those demotions, the decay of our self-realized greatness. It's like fat camp for the soul. "I'm not the rich guy anymore, but I still somehow have everything I need." "I'm not the principal of the school, but I still have God's authority." "I lost my best friend, but I still have God's love and a place in his world."
I was talking with a coworker today about how long we could live off of a certain sum of money. I live in a country with a very high cost of living and have a lot of associated expenses, but I was able to calculate that I'd probably last twenty years on that amount of money. My coworker lives in a lower-cost part of the world and estimated that he could do about sixty years on that same sum. Thinking more about it, I realized I'd probably be upset if I were forced to move to that region of the world, but if I had the same money either way, how many more lives could I affect? If I was able to cut my expenses by 2/3, it would be like getting a giant raise.
But what if I got a pay cut and found myself in that part of the world? I'd probably be furious about having my pay cut by 2/3, but if I discovered that I could still cover my needs the same as living where I do now, would it really be a bad thing? I'd be just as happy, but at a much lower cost. In a way, when our circumstances change, we find ourselves in that similar situation.
Paul's thing describes a situation of being proud of your position no matter what that position is. The poor guy shouldn't be looking down on the rich guy for being the 1%. He should be happy for himself, because he's living efficiently. The rich guy shouldn't be looking down on the poor guy because he's wretched. He should be happy for himself because he gets to fade into obscurity and see so many others benefit from the process. No matter where we are on that spectrum, we can be content in knowing that God has given us a reason to be happy.
We often forget our position and wish we were somewhere else. "At this point in my career I should be making X amount of money instead of Y." "How is it that my neighbor has a brand new car when he doesn't even have a job and I have to drive this old one?" "How is it that the losers get all the girls, and I'm stuck sending myself valentines cards?" "Why can't I afford to take a vacation to the Caribbean every year like my cousins?" We always have a gripe, but where we are in the moment is a collaboration of God's will and our actions. There's a reason why we're here and it's not always a bad one.
Paul had some pretty bad things happen to him over the course of his life. He lost friends, saw people tortured and killed because of the faith he'd introduced them to, and was himself beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and killed. But he was proud of his circumstances, regardless of what they were. It was him and God against the world.
If your life seems to be going downhill, take pride in your humiliation. Your soul is getting lean and efficient. If you're already at the bottom, take pride in your high position. Anything you get now is excess because of how efficient your burn rate is. No matter where you are, you can be happy where you are, because God is with you. He knew you'd be where you are right now and it doesn't change a thing about how he feels towards you. We are blessed and lucky no matter what our circumstances.
Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
I don't know why I stumbled on these particular verses this week, but they spoke to me. There are good things in any situation, whether it's one we want or one we don't. Paul uses money as his example, but it really applies to anything we might or might not be blessed with. God loves us and has something for us, even if we don't recognize it at first.
Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. What does that even mean? What are humble circumstances? I'd associate it with having only what you need and nothing more. We usually recognize that as being without something, like money, or a significant other, or fame, or power, or health, or whatever. Paul says that people in humble circumstances should take pride in their high position. How is being poor or alone or overlooked or powerless a high position?
When you're in humble circumstances, you're running efficiently. You're only spending money on what's necessary, only eating the necessary calories, only burning the minimal fuel needed to get to where you need to be. There's a rightness to it where you don't fall short or have too much. When we seem like we're not getting enough but yet we still get what we need, we're in those humble circumstances.
People have found that happiness adjusts itself to circumstances, so if you can be happy with less, you're doing better than most. Look how miserable even the richest and most powerful people can be sometimes! So if you can be overjoyed over something as simple as a taco, you're truly blessed. I've also heard that married couples are often happier in poorer circumstances because they form a kind of "us against the world" bond. People who eat a very low calorie diet have been found to live longer than people who eat the recommended amount. So there is something to be said for humble circumstances. You're the spiritual equivalent of a car that gets 150 miles to the gallon.
But then Paul flips things around and says that the rich should take pride in their humiliation, that they'll fade away into nothingness. And then it occurred to me that that's true too. Our goal as Christians isn't to get rich. We're not meant to just keep pooling money, like it's internal bleeding in Christ's body. As we grow to love more, and be happier in our circumstances, we will naturally give more away. On a long enough time line, given a perfect spiritual journey, we may go from rich and powerful all the way down to frugal and despised in the course of our lives.
Think about the people that happened to: The rich young ruler described in the gospels, told to sell everything and give it to the undeserving poor. Paul himself, a famous and well respected religious authority made into a hated heretic with a price on his head. Peter, a successful fisherman turned into an enemy of the state, eventually tortured and killed for his beliefs. Saint Francis, the spoiled heir to a fortune, turned penniless and naked. Paul tells us to take pride in those demotions, the decay of our self-realized greatness. It's like fat camp for the soul. "I'm not the rich guy anymore, but I still somehow have everything I need." "I'm not the principal of the school, but I still have God's authority." "I lost my best friend, but I still have God's love and a place in his world."
I was talking with a coworker today about how long we could live off of a certain sum of money. I live in a country with a very high cost of living and have a lot of associated expenses, but I was able to calculate that I'd probably last twenty years on that amount of money. My coworker lives in a lower-cost part of the world and estimated that he could do about sixty years on that same sum. Thinking more about it, I realized I'd probably be upset if I were forced to move to that region of the world, but if I had the same money either way, how many more lives could I affect? If I was able to cut my expenses by 2/3, it would be like getting a giant raise.
But what if I got a pay cut and found myself in that part of the world? I'd probably be furious about having my pay cut by 2/3, but if I discovered that I could still cover my needs the same as living where I do now, would it really be a bad thing? I'd be just as happy, but at a much lower cost. In a way, when our circumstances change, we find ourselves in that similar situation.
Paul's thing describes a situation of being proud of your position no matter what that position is. The poor guy shouldn't be looking down on the rich guy for being the 1%. He should be happy for himself, because he's living efficiently. The rich guy shouldn't be looking down on the poor guy because he's wretched. He should be happy for himself because he gets to fade into obscurity and see so many others benefit from the process. No matter where we are on that spectrum, we can be content in knowing that God has given us a reason to be happy.
We often forget our position and wish we were somewhere else. "At this point in my career I should be making X amount of money instead of Y." "How is it that my neighbor has a brand new car when he doesn't even have a job and I have to drive this old one?" "How is it that the losers get all the girls, and I'm stuck sending myself valentines cards?" "Why can't I afford to take a vacation to the Caribbean every year like my cousins?" We always have a gripe, but where we are in the moment is a collaboration of God's will and our actions. There's a reason why we're here and it's not always a bad one.
Paul had some pretty bad things happen to him over the course of his life. He lost friends, saw people tortured and killed because of the faith he'd introduced them to, and was himself beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and killed. But he was proud of his circumstances, regardless of what they were. It was him and God against the world.
If your life seems to be going downhill, take pride in your humiliation. Your soul is getting lean and efficient. If you're already at the bottom, take pride in your high position. Anything you get now is excess because of how efficient your burn rate is. No matter where you are, you can be happy where you are, because God is with you. He knew you'd be where you are right now and it doesn't change a thing about how he feels towards you. We are blessed and lucky no matter what our circumstances.
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