striving

 "I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind." Ecc. 1:14

As I'm reading through Ecclesiastes I am struck over and over by the hopelessness found in the shallow things of life. Even the "good" things... work, accomplishments, relationships, health, etc... they still amount to nothing in and of themselves. Even worse, they cause us to see each other as competition instead of companions.

"I have seen that every labor and every skill which is done is the result of rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This too is vanity and striving after wind." Ecc 4:4

I've spent so much of my life (and brain-space) worrying how I measure up, how people perceive me. Am I valuable in their eyes? Respected? Loved? I've battled insecurities, physical and mental, only to then *strive* to fix myself. Just to be seen, to find value and purpose.

We all do this. We obsess over our weight, our income, our appearance, our possessions, our status, our accomplishments. It's all striving and it's all about us.

"For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of God." Gal. 1:10

This striving. This competition. This pointless value of the temporary. It is holding us (me) back. It keeps us from deep relationships (how can you truly love someone you mentally are competing with or comparing yourself to?). It keeps us from being vulnerable. It steals our time and our rest. It makes us worry when we could be thriving. Worst of all, it keeps us from God.

It isn't enough to say "I'm body positive" or "I'm secure" or "I know those things don't really matter" or "I love you for who you are". Even those well-meaning words fall flat when the fears rear their head, when the obsessions flare up, when the reflection we see just doesn't "measure up".

"For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers." 1 Tim 4:10

It isn't enough to stop striving. We aren't built that way. We must store our treasure somewhere. If we don't have an ultimate goal we will default to the temporary fixes that our world tells us are a must for happiness and fulfillment.

So what is the solution to this "vanity and striving"? It isn't saying "I am enough as I am". Because we aren't.

"Not that I have already attained this—that is, I have not already been perfected—but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3:12-14

If we set our minds on God (His Word, His truth), the other things fall into their proper places. We see people with eyes of love. We see ourselves as God sees us. And then we slowly start to see ourselves less and less as HE becomes the goal of our striving. Because when God... His heart... His glory... is what we pursue, we will never be chasing wind, because He has already met us in our strivings; loved us, saved us, embraced us. He invites us to put down our burdens of the opinions of others or finding our value in our looks/accomplishments or trying to do it all. He tells us to sit at His feet and find the better thing. Following Christ then becomes a lot less like striving as we see it, an exhausting competition, and a lot more like rest.

Because He has already accomplished the work, chased us down in our wanderings, and won our hearts, we can pursue Him with joy and peace, and with NEVER a doubt of our value because He loved us first.