What Am I Being Formed For?
Imagine with me that I were to take this Timex on my wrist, unscrew the back, disassemble all the parts, put the pieces into a box, shake the box, and throw them into the air. What are the odds that they would fall to the ground as a perfectly functioning wristwatch?
It's a ridiculous image, but it points toward an old argument about God: when we encounter something whose many parts work together with remarkable order and purpose, it's natural to assume there’s intention behind the design.
But I'm not really interested in making an argument about watches—or even proving the existence of God.
I'm wondering about us.
A society doesn't simply appear, fully formed, either. It is made up of millions of people, each being shaped by families and communities, experiences and traditions, teachers and preachers, algorithms and news feeds, and—I hope—by God.
And what—or who—is forming us will inevitably shape what we build together.
In my most recent Pilgrim Note—How Should Faith Inform Our Politics?—, I asked the question, Who is forming me? But I've been thinking that there is another question hiding inside that one:
What am I being formed for?
Have you ever considered that question before? If God is forming me, then why? What is God wanting to accomplish through me as he changes me?
And maybe he isn't shaping just me—in a vacuum. Maybe he's shaping us—together—for a greater purpose.
What could our world look like if we recognized—and welcomed—a God who is creating our common life together as a culture or society?
When we ask the logical next question—What kind of people does Jesus want us to become?—there is a temptation to think the important thing has to do with what we believe. For much of my life I probably would have answered that question by listing a few things Christians are supposed to believe.
Maybe, though, there's a flaw in looking at what one believes as the most important thing God wants to develop in us. After all, the history of religion—and certainly of the Christian Church—is littered with examples of disagreements over belief. Surely there's room for healthy debate and disagreement.
Perhaps Jesus isn't interested only in whether we get our doctrine right. He also cares deeply about the kinds of people our beliefs are forming us to become. Maybe he wants us to move beyond our disagreements in search of a greater goal—the common good, the blessing of all people.
God doesn't work on us as isolated individual parts. He shapes us in relationship with one another. If God wants to shape me to love my neighbor, I need a neighbor to love. If God is forming me toward generosity, I need someone with whom to share. If God is teaching me forgiveness, reconciliation, patience, mercy, or service, those things take shape in relationship with other people. We need one another. Together, we create something.
Consider this thought:
God is forming people who form the world.
If this is true, then this makes every effort of mine—every moment of prayer and solitude listening to the quiet voice of God, every act of surrendering self-will to God's will, every commitment to show selfless love—critical and valuable to God's kingdom.
And it makes every interaction I have with family, friend, or neighbor—even, or maybe especially, the one most different from myself—valuable and important. My formation is never entirely about me. What God is doing in me affects what I bring into the lives of others. And together, all of us are building something.
So what are we building together? That's where this question of formation begins to take on enormous importance for our common life.
Much of what we hear today seems to assume that someone has to lose in order for someone else to win. We divide ourselves into camps. We identify who is standing in our way. We are warned about what will happen if they gain power. Fear and division become powerful motivators.
And then we work as hard as we can to make sure our side wins. But is that the only possibility?
What if the goal isn't simply for my side to flourish? What if I am being formed to care about whether you flourish, too?
Jesus said that one of the greatest commandments is to love my neighbor as myself. I've heard those words all my life, but think about what they require of me.
I naturally care about my own life. I want security. I want opportunity. I want to be treated fairly. I want enough to meet my needs. I want people to listen to me. I want my children and the people I love to have opportunities to thrive.
But if I am to love my neighbor as myself, then your security has to matter to me, too. Your opportunity matters. Whether you are treated fairly matters. Whether you have enough matters. Whether your children have an opportunity to thrive matters.
Your well-being matters to me.
That doesn't mean we won't disagree. It doesn't mean that every disagreement has a comfortable compromise somewhere in the middle. But it especially doesn't mean that injustice should be tolerated for the sake of keeping the peace.
Maybe it gives us a different goal.
If you are my neighbor, then I can't define a good society merely as one that works well for me. I have to ask whether there is room in my vision of the common good for you to flourish, too.
That question seems especially important right now, in the midst of another election season.
Recently, my pastor, Dr. Doug Mills, in his Sunday sermon, pointed to something in Paul's letter to the Philippians that I hadn't really noticed before. When Paul tells them to live their lives “worthy of the gospel,” the language he uses carries the idea of living as citizens. Our citizenship—how we conduct ourselves as members of a community—is part of our life of faith.
Pastor Mills put it this way: “Striving side by side is not a byproduct of the gospel; it's the very way of the gospel.”
That makes me wonder whether an election season is about more than choosing the people who will form our government. Maybe it's also revealing something about how we are being formed. The messages we listen to, the fears we embrace, the people we learn to distrust, the hopes we nurture, and the vision of our neighbors we carry with us into the voting booth are shaping us, too.
Maybe that gives us another way of testing the competing messages around us. Perhaps when we hear a campaign commercial or investigate the political positions of a candidate we begin to test the message with questions like:
Does this message make me more fearful of my neighbor—or more loving toward my neighbor?
Does it encourage me to blame a group of people for what is wrong—or invite me to consider how we might solve our problems together?
Does it convince me that my security requires someone else's insecurity—or seek a society in which we can both feel secure?
Does it tell me that the only way I can win is for someone else to lose—or imagine possibilities in which we can both flourish?
Does it call me to protect only what is good for me—or toward something bigger: a common life in which we seek one another's flourishing?
That's a much more hopeful vision.
Not everyone will get everything they want. There will still be difficult choices. There will be disagreements about what flourishing means and about how we get there. But our disagreement doesn't have to mean that one of us has to be the enemy.
Maybe we can begin asking a different question—not simply, How does my side win? But how do we create an environment in which...
All of us have the opportunity to flourish?
Perhaps that's part of what God is forming us for.
But there's a danger even in asking that question. It's easy for me to look outward and ask what kind of country they are creating. And by “they” I mean our political leaders, regardless of party or ideology.
That lets me off the hook, because if God is forming people who form the world, then the question of what kind of society we are creating begins much closer to home. It begins with what God is forming in me.
Am I becoming:
More fearful—or more loving?
More interested in defeating people—or understanding them?
More concerned with protecting what is mine—or with whether my neighbor can flourish too?
More certain that I possess the truth—or more willing to listen for God's voice?
Maybe that's part of what I'm being formed for. Not simply to hold the right beliefs. Not to make sure my side wins. Not even to convince everyone else to see the world the way I do.
Maybe God is forming me to become the kind of person who can help form a world in which…
My neighbor's flourishing matters as much to me as my own.
And maybe that's where the common good begins. Not in Washington. Not in Austin…
But it starts right here—with me.
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