“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” In my first post-college career teaching high school English, I liked to put this first line from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield on the board for my students to discuss. I would ask them, “What does it mean to be the hero of your own life?” and “What will make you proud of your life?”
I still think it’s quite valuable to cast ourselves as the protagonist in the story of our lives. After all, we should be routing for ourselves to do well. Of course, what we believe about the world, God, right and wrong, good and bad all contribute to defining what we mean by doing well. As we get older, it’s natural enough to shrink from characterizing ourselves as the “hero.” Whatever high ambitions we had as youth are quickly tempered by the reality of our own flaws and the “circumstances beyond our control” that have bombarded our childhood, youth, and adulthood. Perhaps we have begun to settle for a life that’s “good enough.”
But this is not the message that Jesus gives us. Although Jesus proved himself quite comfortable with people across the socio-economic spectrum of His day, primarily His audience consisted of a people downtrodden by poverty and political oppression. While He offered compassion for people who had indeed been sinned against, He did not allow them to characterize themselves as hopeless victims. Quite the contrary, He called them to something much higher: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:46-48 NIV). Eugene Peterson, in the Message, translates the command to be perfect: “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
In Mere Christianity, CS Lewis quotes nineteenth century author George MacDonald, “God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.” God stands on the frontline of our fallenness ready to pour compassion on our wounds and forgiveness on our faults. The Lord is even generous enough not to open our eyes to all our weaknesses all at once, but gently unwraps the anatomy of our demons as we become ready to confront them. Even so, God is relentless in the pursuit of our transformation. “Good enough” is never enough good for the Lord.
Going back to Mere Christianity, I share with you the image Lewis adopted from MacDonald:
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew these jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of … You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.
Dickens talked about being the “hero” of our own life. God means for us to be heroes as well, but not as the world names heroes, or even, as it turns out, how we would assess “success.” God has been patiently reading our life stories and cheering all the while for the protagonist – us – to come out as the Lord’s good and faithful servant with whom God is well-pleased.
In other words, we are the houses that God builds. The Lord stands before us ready to direct a series of renovation projects that will ultimately transform us into gorgeous mansions: good and faithful servants of God and our fellow humans.
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