July 21, 2003

“HOW AM I DOING?”

On one day last week, two different people complimented me on losing weight. Both used the word “slim.” Earlier that morning the bathroom scale had told me that I had actually gained a pound or two. What were they seeing? I had gotten a short summer haircut; did that make my body look thinner?

What I at first took as a compliment was turned upside down in my mind by the end of the day. If I appeared “slimmer” to these people now, I must have really looked fat the last time they saw me. I came to believe they were humoring me with their pseudo-compliment. That was a depressing thought.

So I began to look at other people. I encouraged myself by noting that I was aging more gracefully than a friend of mine (at least, as well as I could tell without my glasses). This is the final recourse of a person who is too preoccupied with body image: find people who look worse than you do, and hang out with them. Never stand anywhere near the guy who works out three times a week. If you can’t look absolutely good, maybe you can look relatively good.

Ed Koch, when he was mayor of New York City, created quite a stir when he walked up to strangers on the street and asked, “How am I doing?” People found it refreshing that Hizonner really cared about their opinions, and he was quite popular, for a time. Soon, though, it got old. The citizens of New York realized that this was a marketing device, rather than a sincere question. Like all politicians, Koch got his answers to the “How am I doing?” question from extensive polls and political pros, not from citizens on the streets. So they threw the bum out.

Many Christians are insecure about how they’re progressing in their Christian lives. They try to measure their growth, their spirituality, their Bible knowledge and their moral decisions against some standard. Perfection is too long a yardstick. They try to come up with another way of judging: What might be normal growth for a person who has been a believer as long as I have? Are my remaining sins worse than the average? Am I demonstrating enough commitment (without becoming fanatical, of course)?

Inevitably, they end up comparing themselves with other Christians who are going through the same struggles. Two of them meet, and beneath their guarded conversation they are asking each other, “How am I doing?”

The Apostle Paul felt that he was being tugged into the same pattern of superficial self-evaluation, because his style of ministry was being compared with some others that had more glamor and persuasiveness. He responded with disarming candor:

“Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation form God.”
1 Corinthians 4:1–5)

No one has a right to evaluate her or himself or anyone else, because all the evidence is not yet in. When the Lord comes, it will all become clear, but not before then.

I love the way Paul ends this paragraph: “Then each one will receive commendation from God.” “Commendation,” not “condemnation.” Self-evaluation and comparison to others inevitably leads to condemnation, all the way around. But God, Paul tells us, will commend. He will find a way to say to all who sincerely follow him, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

–Pastor George Van Alstine