The Eye of a Needle Challenge

I have often thought growth in every form as a total gain. It’s obvious. Growth in wealth, growth in career, growth in platform and influence--no one questions that these things are good, and the best sellers lists only confirm that underlying assumption with revolving titles like Atomic Habits, Baby Steps Millionaires, The 5 AM Club. Our society is fascinated with the idea of getting bigger and better and smarter and more efficient. I had a mentor tell me once that we should strive to get as much responsibility as possible in order to do the most good as possible. For a young man with penchants for sloth and indolence, this was good advice--but I wonder if we ever take time to count the cost of our territorial expansion?

I recently went to Sight and Sound theater in Lancaster, PA for my wife Montana's birthday. We saw "David" which did a quick biographical sketch of David's life from shepherd boy to King of Israel. One of the interesting things is how the play portrayed David's rise to power as providing an opportunity for his sin with Bathsheba to occur. If David remained a mere shepherd boy, with no power, position, resources--there would have been no way he could have gotten away with the adulterous affair and the subsequent murder by proxy. I doubt something so egregious would be in the realm of possible to consider. But give him fame, fortune, and success--is there anything outside the realm of the possible anymore? His Kingship gave David great opportunities for good, and surely He did very well with much of it, but it also gave him reciprocal opportunities for evil. A higher stage opens the door for a higher fall.

It is easy to look at the entertainers and politicians in our day and be floored by the hedonism and corruption. We look and marvel at their colossal falls: "what a mess he is," "how could anyone do that?"--all the while being insulated from the opportunities to do likewise. It is easy to underestimate the fermenting influence of such positions when we have never faced such pressures. Is there anyone in the limelight who has come out unscathed? 

But don't wealth and power only make you more of what you are already are? As long as we become virtuous now, we should be ready for what's to come. I have espoused this understanding for a while, but now I am not sure it is quite right. Or perhaps it is right after all, only the depravity of what we already are is cloaked by our current stations and limited opportunities. That, for many of us, becoming more of what we already are is in fact not a good thing. Could a small platform prove in the end a kind of mercy; or anonymity and limited resources a sheltering provision?  Who knows what might be lurking beneath all this time, yet remains lurking because there is no possibility afforded it by position or power.

Does this talk strike you defeatist? A kind of "loserthink" or coping mechanism in reaction to the fact that I have not made anything significant of myself and am trying to justify my unfulfilled ambitions? It is not my intent to fan the flames of complacency, but to consider if all of us need to strive for the highest and most. There is a reason why the Bible warns "not many of you should become teachers." Some are equipped for this work, and many are not. There is a reason for the continual warnings about wealth contained in the Scripture, because it is indeed hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven. I fear many of us too easily accept the "eye of a needle challenge," without first considering if there is an alternate route.

This is not to say that wealth is bad or influence should be shunned at all cost. God has used these tools in the arms of his saints to great effect. Only let us prayerfully count the cost before begging for more. There is a chance we may get what we asked for, and there is a chance it may prove too much.