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June 30, 2010 at 1:49 pm |
This ambition poster really resonates with me, for two reasons. First off, the irony is tangible. It’s a funny picture, right?
But after I stopped laughing from the initial glance, something happened. I realized that these ambitious participants, the bear and the salmon, are biologically motivated. In other words, it is their instinct that drives them to behave the way they do. The salmon swims upstream to reproduce. The bear eats the salmon to survive (and eventually reproduce).
This is where the truth of the Gospel hits me. In my own life, many of my struggles and much of my journey has not been motivated by impulses so innocent as animal instinct. On the other hand, a great deal of my life’s work has been completely centered on the effort to make something of myself.
Not to benefit my family. Not to help others. Not to make the world a better place. Not to glorify God. Simply to exalt my own attributes, to advance my reputation. It has been nothing short of a self-salvation project, an over zealous and arrogant try at redemption.
And here, the real difference between us and them is revealed. As humans, we are no less animal than the bear or the salmon. We are informed by instinct and biological impulse. We are driven to reproduce. Yet, this picture of ambition shows the uniquely human capacity to worship- and thus to exceed any of the violence and cruelty of the natural order (which is bound by the sin of humanity). We humans are far more sinister (as C.S. Lewis puts it).
For the salmon, the journey ends badly. For the bear, not so bad. For us, however, the journey can be deceiving. We can easily assume that the journey has ended well when we achieve that goal that was so important to us- that championship, that promotion, that spouse, that home, that polical victory, that approval of our peers, etc. The truth is that we are blessed when we fail terribly and are given the opportunity to re-consider the purpose of our quest (Matthew 5:3-12).
The Gospel informs us that we have already failed beyond our wildest expectations. We are born in the posture of the salmon in this picture. All of our effort to make our life amount to something by our own standards will always amount to a very bad ending. But the Good News is that Jesus has lived the life we could never live and died the death we should die. He has been resurrected from the dead to reign forever as Lord and God. It’s become devastatingly obvious to me in recent years that, while my mouth confessed that I trusted Christ, my heart was (and is) continually seeking to justify my life and my identity apart from Christ.
Pray with me that anyone who would follow Christ would see this picture and realize the truth of their own journey. And that much would be made of the grace and supremacy of Jesus as our lives are re-ordered around Him; may our selfish ambitions die. May we be freed from the longing to reproduce according to our own desires and for our own namesake. May we learn from the mistakes of Abraham. May we reproduce disciples of the Messiah. Amen.