Will you observe Christmas tomorrow? If so, according to a new Gallup survey, you’re in the majority: 88 percent of Americans will join you.
Will you attend church services today or tomorrow? If so, you’re in the minority: only 47 percent of Americans will join you, down from 64 percent in 2010.
Now consider two other recent Gallup headlines: “US Mental Health Ratings Continue to Worsen” and “Americans End Year in Gloomy Mood.”
I believe declining church attendance is related to declining well-being in a way that might surprise you, but will—I hope—greatly encourage you as well.
“To run where the brave dare not go”
A recent article by clinical psychology professor Ross White advises, “Your purpose isn’t something to find, it’s something you form.” He reports that online searches for the phrase “find your purpose” have risen by more than 3,000 percent in the past three decades. However, he encourages his clients to take a different path.
In his view, our life purpose works with what and who we already are and evolves over time while serving its own ends. The goal is to form a direction that “brings meaning and vitality to our lives.”
I’m reminded of the testimony of Albert Camus, who called himself an “absurdist” and viewed the universe as meaningless: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
His words stir something in me. The idea that I can form my own purpose and thus bring “meaning and vitality” to my life is viscerally attractive. I’m reminded of “The Quest,” a song I first heard as a young boy and has been performed or recorded dozens of times since:
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love, pure and chaste, from afar
To try, when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause
And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star!
After all these years, I can still recite these aspirational lyrics in my mind today.
But are they true?
A nativity set missing a figure
Joseph is often called the “silent man of Christmas.” In all the biblical narratives, he speaks not a single recorded word. I remember a nativity set I once found in a store which included figurines for Jesus, Mary, shepherds, Wise Men, and even animals, but none for Joseph. If you set it out, I’m not sure how many people would notice the omission.
And yet, without someone doing what Joseph did, there would have been no Christmas.
He agreed to make his pregnant fiancée his wife, ignoring the societal scorn that would likely come as a consequence. He risked his life by embarking on a journey to Bethlehem for the birth of a baby who was not his. He risked his life again by taking the child and his mother to Egypt to escape the murderous clutches of King Herod.
He risked his future and prosperity once more when, “being warned in a dream,” he “went and lived in a city called Nazareth” (Matthew 2:22, 23), a town so insignificant that it is mentioned not once in the entire Old Testament.
While his words are nowhere recorded, he changed the course of human history—not just by protecting Jesus, but by modeling obedience for him. So it was that when his adopted son came to teach his disciples to pray, he began with the Aramaic word he first used for Joseph: Abba, “Father” (Matthew 6:9). Scholars tell us that Jesus was the first rabbi in Jewish history to address the Lord of heaven in such a personal way.
Now Joseph’s example is God’s invitation to us today.
“More than conquerors through him who loved us”
Isaiah foretold the coming of One who would be “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Yesterday, we considered Mary’s commitment to our Prince of Peace. Today, let’s emulate Joseph’s commitment to him as our Everlasting Father.
Here’s my point: we will seek and trust our Father’s purpose rather than our own to the degree that we believe he loves us more than we love ourselves.
You might think that you always want whatever is best for yourself, but I doubt it. If you’re like me, you too often succumb to temptation to make choices you know will cost more than they pay, then punish yourself with guilt for your failures. And you see yourself in the mirror of the opinion of others, valuing yourself only when and as they do. Since popularity is always fleeting, so is your esteem of yourself.
By contrast, the Christ of Christmas knows every failure of your past and future but loves you unconditionally (1 John 4:8). What’s more, he likes you. Our Lord “takes pleasure in his people” (Psalm 149:4), “delights in the welfare of his servant” (Psalm 35:27), and “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).
He is on our side so fully that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Paul adds:
Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (vv. 38–39).
Experiencing this all-conquering love is the key to the well-being our souls long to embrace.
The choice that changes everything
Now we have a choice. We can form our own self-reliant purpose for our own ends, or we can seek and follow the purpose of an Everlasting Father who loves us more than we could ever love ourselves. We can strive to “reach the unreachable star,” or, like Joseph, we can take the hand of the Creator of the stars as he reaches down to us.
Famed missionary Jim Elliot prayed,
“Your will, Lord. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.”
Will you make his prayer yours today?
Quote for the day:
“He who obeys sincerely endeavors to obey thoroughly.” —Thomas Brooks (1608–80)
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