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When I was a child, I absorbed the message that achievement was everything. Of all the life-lessons I learned as I grew up, the one that my parents emphasized the most was doing well in school. Not only to do well, but to to excel. My parents did not have the opportunity for higher education, so they expected me to do my very best, perhaps to achieve what circumstances did not permit them to do.
This perspective of my parents deeply reinforced an achievement mentality in me: in order to be loved and praised, I had to do well. My striving to achieve in school wasn't always successful. In certain areas I wasn't as competent as my parents believed me to be, or wished I were. My parents just encouraged me to try harder or to study more.
In retrospect, and in studying the Scriptures, I now see that my achievement mentality, the striving for the approval of others, is contrary to God's ways. The goal of working towards making something great of myself, by my own efforts, is actually an idol!
An idol? I didn't think people worshipped idols these days. I read about the Israelites in the Old Testament, sinning over and over again, by worshipping idols. But we don't do that, do we? Worshipping idols seems an outdated concept that I didn't have to worry about in the list of bad behaviours listed in I Corinthians 6:9,10: “Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or who are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or who are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God." (NLT)
I now realize that idol worship is making anything more important than God. When I was young, I put my trust in my own abilities. It was up to me to achieve, to strive for perfection, to control my own destiny. That is a deception. Furthermore, failing in these goals just caused negative feelings and lowered my self-esteem.
I Corinthians 6 has the good news: “Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy” (1 Corinthians 6:11a NLT)
When I was “made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God”, (1 Corinthians 6:11b NLT) I was delivered from what I used to be. I traded my idol for the gift of God's infallible guidance instead of relying on my self-centred striving. I John 5:21 says, “Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God's place in your hearts” (NLT)
Let's remember this important truth. We don't have to stay the way we were, but God can change us as we accept the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Alice Burnett
Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
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