A Messiah complex is a state in which the individual believes themselves to be, or destined to become, the savior of the particular field, a group, an event, a time period, or in an extreme scenario, the world. In an extreme case these people are usually wacko (i.e. Adolf Hitler) or in a mild case, someone like myself who gets this preconceived self-righteous moment where I think I should try to fix someone, something or the current injustices of the world. When this happens I'm confused, I think I am called to be Jesus instead of following Jesus.
Rich Mullins once wrote:
God has called us to be lovers and we frequently think that He meant us to be saviors. So we "love" as long as we see "results." We give ourselves as long as our investments pay off, but if the ones we love do not respond, we tend to despair and blame ourselves and even resent those we pretend to love. Because we love someone, we want them to be free of addictions, of sin, of self--and that is as it should be. But it might be that our love for them and our desire for their well-being will not make them well. And, if that is the case, their lack of response no more negates the reality of love than their quickness to respond would confirm it.
To be honest, I've been wrestling with this lately. You know its easy to love someone when it's confirmed. Its easy to love like in the movies. Sure the coach can give up his life, go the extra mile, stand against adversity, neglect his family and strain his marriage.The team wins in the third act. Results like that make the first two acts seem easy.
So what if that's not the case? What if you love the loser. Is it bring a good steward loving a lost cause? I'm struggling with this because it hard to love this way. It's hard to spend time for things that may not have an end result. Unfortunately for the result oriented this a love that requires no more than to love and that is all. It is less of an obligation and more a result of a broken life that can not hold in its contents.
The Bible mentions we have all sinned and fallen short of Gods standards (Rom 3.23. paraphrased). When we are mindful of our flaws and failures and those things that are forgiven we can be broken and let whatever amount of His love pour into our lives and the lives of others.
So am I a messiah here to fix the worlds injustices, be angry at the greedy rich and bitter at the bureaucracies? I think not. I hope not. I am a sinner who is forgiven and who is just trying to let love live a little more in my life.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
great post, asher.
i see the "fixers" too. they love the current cause, but don't love you or me. my friends are not my mission, but sometimes friendship grows from serving and reaching out. about 1/2 of us seem to be wired for results, and that helps the other 1/2 of us who can get complacent.
change is good, paul even says basically "grow up, eat some meat" to some baby-ish christians. but how we mature in our walk with god is most often unseen and at times painful and private.
so the christian who loves with no reward, is indeed rewarded. with the faith to wait for outcomes revealed in heaven, and the strengthening of earthly relationships based on His love, not our needs or checklist of ministries.
I think just giving, just serving opens up this endless amount of possibilities of experiencing God in so many areas. A good friend of mine used to say "Don't limit God to your paycheck." I think there is truth in that. We limit God when we do something for the end result.
our students asked a great question at YoungLife tonight: does a person have to be broken in order to bully appreciate love...
Post a Comment