Living in somebody else's imagination

The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions of other men!  A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!

Thomas Merton, in The Seven-Storey Mountain

Escaping mediocrity

There must be a way to escape [mediocrity] even when you know you are even below it. Perhaps knowing you are below it is a way to begin. I say I am equal with it; but I am below it. I will always be staggering between Despair & Presumption, facing first one & then the other, deciding which makes me look the best, which fits most comfortably, most conveniently. I'll never take a large chunk of anything. I'll nibble nervously here & there. Fear of God is right; but God, it is not this nervousness. It must be a joy. Every virtue must be vigorous. Virtue must be the only vigorous thing in our lives. Sin is large & stale. You can never finish eating it nor ever digest it. It has to be vomited. But perhaps that is too literary a statement - this mustn't get insincere.
How can I live - how shall I live. Obviously the only way to live right is to give up everything. But I have no vocation & maybe that is wrong anyway. But how [to] eliminate this picky fish bone kind of way I do things - I want so to love God all the way. At the same time I want all the things that seem opposed to it - I want to be a fine writer. Any success will tend to swell my head - unconsciously even. If I ever do get to be a fine writer, it will not be because I am a fine writer but because God has given me credit for a few of the things He kindly wrote for me. Right at the present this does not seem to be his policy. I can't write a thing. But I'll continue to try - that is the point. And at every dry point, I will be reminded Who is doing the work when it is done & Who is not doing it at that moment. Right now I wonder if God will ever do any more writing for me. He has promised His grace; I am not so sure about the other. Perhaps I have not been thankful enough for what has gone before.

Flannery O'Connor in A Prayer Journal, pages 22/23

Self-glorification

[James] Denney urged his flock to love their neighbors in need and “to spend and be spent in the teeth of all discouragement.” He pressed them to shrink from “the impiety which seeks in successful work the ground of self-glorification.”

These prescriptions transcend the specific problem Denney was addressing. They are words for us in all seasons. We need to practice a “patient continuance of well doing,” no matter what the difficulties or obstacles. As Paul put it, we should “not grow weary in doing what is right for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). Despite the temptation to cut and run, or to burn-out, we need an ongoing commitment to doing God’s work in ministry, through all our days and all our circumstances. This patience needs to be continual, grounded in the trust that God is at work in what we do.

When things go well, on the other hand, we may be tempted to think we have done nicely! We pat ourselves on the back for what has been achieved. The cult of “success” is always before us, luring us into its grasp and urging us to attribute whatever has been accomplished to our own abilities, smarts, and strengths. We can easily turn in upon ourselves to ascribe  all goodness to our own efforts.

But this we need to resist. As Denney said, there is “the impiety which seeks in successful work the ground of self-glorification.” In our better moments, we know all things rest in God; and God’s grace is the ground for all that emerges through anything we do. I’m always reminded that “success is not a biblical category”! We are not called to be “successful;” we are called to be faithful. Again, Paul reminds us that in “whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Whatever goodness arises from what we do, the glory is God’s, not our own.

from The Patient Continuance of Well Doing, by Don McKim