Performance

Just about everything in life is about how well we perform.  Students are given grades that indicate their level of performance.  Employers evaluate their workers and compensate at a higher rate those who perform well.  In an athletic contest, the team or athlete that performs at the highest level wins.  Even in relationships, we can evaluate people on the basis of performance.  We gravitate toward people who act in ways that meet our preferences.

All of this makes it so difficult to function in a relationship with God - a relationship that is never based on performance.  There’s something good and attractive about rules.  Rules are concrete.  They let us know objectively how we are performing.  Love, on the other hand, can be much more difficult.  It offers us nothing by which to assess our performance because God’s love doesn’t change with our performance.  No matter how badly you fail or how noble your deeds, God doesn’t love you more or less.  It’s sort of like getting an A before you’ve even taken the exam.  What’s the point?  That’s the challenge of a relationship with God.  It’s not about earning the A.  It’s aspiring to live a life worthy of that grade by the power of the One who gave it to us.  In Philippians 3:16, Paul puts it this way: “Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”  Stop trying to earn something you already have.  Instead, start being who you already are.