• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Homegoing

faith, family, and the stuff of life

  • About
  • Categories
    • Plant
    • Grow
    • Savor
  • Contact

The Disintegrating Hope of Vanity

July 29, 2018 by Alyssa Poblete 2 Comments

The Disintegrating Hope of Vanity

Her silence was deafening. We sat in the middle of a crowded coffee shop, enveloped in a chorus of slurping coffee drinkers and cackling carpool moms, yet all I could hear was her silence. The expressionless stare on her face told me everything. I had been found out.

There is a lot of thoughtful work that goes into masquerading as someone you are not. Hours of careful study are required to create a veneer of maturity. The appropriate lingo must be used to ensure you don’t say anything that would give yourself away. Personal conversations must be prepared for in advance. Smiling is key and, occasionally, a well-appointed tear shed will dismantle any concern that this is just a facade. I worked hard at delicately crafting what appeared to be a “faithful” life. But the scary thing is, it was only the appearance of faithfulness; I had no idea that it was all just a masquerade.

What I thought I had found was theological maturity. Books, sermons, podcasts—you name it, I wanted to get my hands on it. I felt proud as long as I was just a few steps ahead of others on theological hot-topics and remained informed on the latest controversy stirring in Christian subculture. I prided myself in reading the dead theologians of the past and loved studying God’s word for the gain of knowledge. Lofty theological lingo, praying the most biblical sounding prayers, and attending every Bible study offered made me feel like I had a vibrant personal relationship with God, and I loved when others noticed it.  But I couldn’t shake the gnawing sense that I was missing the whole point. My private devotional life in God’s Word was severely malnourished, my prayer life was pretty much non-existent, and my words rarely matched what was really going on in my heart. I was a mile wide and an inch deep. And I was terrified of being found out.

My friend had just thrown me a curve ball—a question I had not prepared myself for—“What does your private relationship with God look like? Describe it to me.” I grasped for the right words, a garbled mess of theological jargon spilled out of my mouth. It didn’t quite answer the question, but I felt like it was sufficient to distract and, at the very least, allow us to move on. She was unimpressed and unwilling to retreat. She asked again, this time with more force.

Panic began to set in as I gripped the broken pieces of my carefully crafted self and held them in place. After taking a moment to think, I gave a more sufficient answer. She stared at me in silence, unmoved. I knew she could see right through me. But thankfully, she acquiesced and the conversation changed course. Victory. I expelled a hurried sigh of relief, but it wasn’t quite satisfying. I had come scarily close to being exposed. That day, as I left the coffee shop, I felt completely exhausted. Pretending to be someone you are not is the most laborious work there is.

Since the dawn of time, this has been man’s struggle. God clothed his people in his image and crowned them with the highest form of dignity in creation, calling them his children. But over and over again, his people have looked for their identity in all the wrong places. Our first parents grasped for the dangling fruit of significance in the garden, Cain fought for it with his brother, Israel searched for it in the wilderness, judges starved for it in places of honor. Every time they came up empty. Years later, I myself  would fall for the fatal lie that acceptance and applause from others would satisfy my longings. God’s people have gotten it backwards in a million different ways for centuries. They have doubted their God-given identity and instead grabbed for the glimmering hope of vanity.

King Saul is one of the most classic examples of someone who got it royally backwards. God had appointed Saul as king over his chosen people and entrusted him with great earthly dignity. If anyone did have a reason to trust in their significance it was him. However, Saul still felt the need to prove he was something special.

As God’s chosen king and image-bearer, he was called to simply obey the commands of God. Saul received very specific instructions—go and completely destroy the Amalekite nation. This included livestock, possessions, people, rulers—every precious thing that made the Amalekites who they were. It was so clear. But how did Saul respond? He went went and destroyed most, but not all. He kept the Amalekite king, Agag, and the best of the livestock. When he deemed his work complete, he “set up a monument for himself” (1 Samuel 15:12) and proudly told the prophet Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me” (1 Samuel 15:20). Sure he stood in the midst of a chorus of bleating sheep and lowing oxen—the very livestock he was called to completely wipe out—but that was only because he saved the best for the Lord. And yes, a quivering king was spared, but he’s locked in chains and held as prisoner. Saul thought God would be pleased by the great sacrifices he made, but God was not. He saw Saul’s partial obedience as complete and utter disobedience.

It was painfully obvious. This was not the Lord’s work. This was for Saul’s own gain. Samuel pointed out to Saul that God doesn’t delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices if the pathway to get there is peppered with perversity. “Behold,” Samuel exhorted, “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22b). True, genuine, heartfelt obedience is far better than great acts of perceived faithfulness.

Saul’s relentless ambition to boost his significance required him to refashion God’s commands to suit his own needs. Samuel, struck with utter disbelief, reminded Saul:

Although you may think little of yourself, are you not the leader of the tribes of Israel? The LORD has anointed you king of Israel. And the LORD sent you on a mission and told you, ‘Go and completely destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are all dead.’ Why haven’t you obeyed the LORD? Why did you rush for the plunder and do what was evil in the LORD’s sight?” (15:17-19).

Saul thought so little of himself that he looked to the world around to ascribe to him the significance he so longed for. “I have sinned,” Saul shamefully admitted, “for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice” (1 Samuel 15:24). Saul was mistaken. He thought the people’s admiration was the prize so he brought home the plunder of the Amalekites to show the watching world that he had material wealth. He captured the Amalekite king to display his great feats of strength and power. And he kept for himself the best of the livestock for a sacrifice to prove to the people that he was God’s chosen man. Saul sought to escape his smallness by making himself great with his own hands.

What Saul failed to realize was that his search for dignity and worth would never be fully satisfied in people’s praise and respect. He was looking for value and meaning in the wrong place. In fact, he was blinded to the reality that this value he so longed for was already given to him as a gift from God; and instead of wielding it with humility, he squandered it with pride.  As a result, the kingdom of Israel was ripped away from his hands (1 Samuel 15:28) and most horrifying—God’s Spirit left Saul (1 Samuel 16:14).

For centuries, God’s people continued to make the same dreadful mistake. Thinking they could do it better, they sought out short cuts and bypassed God’s ways in an attempt to perform for the watching world. This was my alarming condition that day at the coffee shop. Just as Saul so desperately wanted to prove his faithfulness, I wanted my friend to see mine.

The tragic thing about my story is I didn’t understand how awful my condition was. Like Saul, who pointed to all the righteous acts he had done and felt assured he was okay, I filled my life with so many good things I felt like whatever was lacking was permissible. There was a disconnect, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was seriously wrong with this picture. What I failed to realize was that in my attempt at “doing the Christian thing,” I was missing the real prize and settling for the disintegrating hope of approval. My friend’s long, unmoving stare exposed me, and for the first time I realized—I was in a love affair with myself. I wanted my righteousness to be seen by many far more than I wanted to walk the hard road of genuine faith.

Saul was in a similar position—talking to a friend, trying to prove his fidelity—but his friend Samuel was not convinced and lovingly uncovered his shameful condition. For a moment in Saul’s story it seems that he has taken a turn, repented of his foolish ways, and gained clarity on what genuine worship looks like. He responds with what looks like faithfulness. Yet, as the story continues, we see Saul perpetually seeking to protect his image, prove his worth, and avoid any threat of exposure.

One of his greatest threats was David, the one God had appointed to succeed him as king. David was the real deal, “A man after God’s own heart.” His very presence brought Saul’s lack of authenticity to light. Just like my friend in the coffee shop, David exposed something in Saul—God’s Spirit was not with him. So, Saul spent the rest of his days working with a vengence to put an end to David. His life was characterized by an endless pursuit to protect his image.

I’d like to say that I was different than Saul. I’d like to say when I walked out of the coffee shop that day my whole life changed, but it didn’t. Instead, I despised the feeling of exposure and worked a little harder at mending the weak areas in my rhetoric. It would take a long road, peppered with lots of comforts removed and desires unmet, for me to realize that I was chasing after the wrong thing. Through hardship, God lovingly exposed my faulty foundation and proved to me that he really was better than the charade I had been playing for so long.

Since the beginning, God’s people have been prone to make this fatal mistake, lose their way, and settled for a shadow of the real thing. I did and if I’m being honest I still do sometimes. This world is filled with a multitude of voices claiming they have what we want. But they always underdeliver. Corrie Ten Boom once said, “trying to do the Lord’s work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work” —the reward is measly at best, the requirements to carry on as someone else are costly, and ultimately the pathway leads to sure disappointment.

But here is the good news: a greater king than Saul, and even David, would come. This king, though he was great, made himself small and lived in perfect obedience of his Heavenly Father. Rather than clinging to wealth, power, and acceptance, he laid those aside and gave up his life as a ransom for many. He did not have monetary comfort, political strength, or wild success among his peers during his short stint on Earth. In fact, he would live a lifetime being despised and rejected by men. But unlike Saul, whose throne was removed, King Jesus sits on his throne forever as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And when he died he paid for our wandering ways with his blood so that we could taste the satisfaction only he can provide. There is nothing greater than enjoying all that God has promised to be for us in Jesus Christ. No powerful position, no wild applause, no unquestioning acceptance will make up for the lack of him. Don’t get this backwards brothers and sisters, your joy in this life depends on it.

Filed Under: Grow

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sally Sprenger says

    August 1, 2018 at 2:50 am

    Thank you Alyssa, I enjoyed reading your article.
    Praise and glory to the Lord!
    As the late Dear Bill Acton continually reminded me,
    “Sally, your identity is in Christ Jesus, your Lord and Savior”
    I need to remind myself of that everyday!❤️

    Reply
  2. Buggy Castro says

    August 2, 2018 at 12:14 am

    Oh my gosh, you are such an amazing writer. Thank you for being so brutally honest and vulnerable. I know I have much to learn from you!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Before Footer

Dry chicken and undercooked potatoes were the cons Dry chicken and undercooked potatoes were the consistent theme of most of the meals I cooked in our early days of marriage. We lived in a tiny one bedroom apartment with a kitchen the size of a small walk in closet and packed our 4ftx4ft bistro table with as many chairs as we possibly could. On my best days, our meals were dull. On the worst, they bordered on peculiar.
.
I didn’t particularly like cooking, but I loved people so I kept on making meals and opening our door and sitting for hours around that little table—listening to stories and sharing hope. This is the thing about a home cooked meal, it brings people together and invites them to linger. My growing love for the art of cooking started there, not because the meal has to be great, but because every investment of care and preparation in a meal is an act of love.
.
Over the years I have found the sound of oil snapping and popping on the stove a deep comfort and gotten giddy over the mingling of spices and herbs as their aroma fills the air. I’ve taken a lot of joy in carefully constructing menus and nothing beats the delight of watching my friends finding satisfaction and rest around our dining table.
.
My kids have started to share those passions with me so I began collecting some of our favorite recipes in this book to pass along to them when they are in need of help in the days ahead. While I love witnessing their faces as they learn to measure and pour and sift and chop, my heart yearns for them to not only grow a love for cooking but a love for people. On the first page of our family collection is this prayer from Every Moment Holy, a reminder to me that cooking is a labor of love first and an art second:

“As we perform the various tasks of washing, chopping, sifting, mixing, simiring, baking, and boiling, let those little acts coalesce into an embodied liturgy of service--an outworking of love offered for your purposes, that through us, your tender care might be translated into the comforting and cheery language of nurturing food and drink offered for the benefit of others... (continued int the comments) #exhalecreativity #everymomentholy
A prayer for my church from the words of John Pipe A prayer for my church from the words of John Piper and a pic of some of the cuties from @kxchurchoc: 
.
“Oh Lord, by the truth of your Word, and the power of your Spirit and the ministry of your body, build men and women at [ @kxchurchoc ]...
.
Who don’t love the world more than God...who don’t expect that life should be comfortable and easy...who don’t get paralyzed by other’s disapproval, who don’t return evil for evil, who don’t hold grudges, who don’t gossip, who don’t twist the truth, who don’t brag or boast...
.
But who are ablaze for God, who are utterly God-besotted, who are filled with the Holy Spirit, who strive to know the height and depth of Christ’s love, who are crucified to the world and dead to sin, who are purified by the Word and addicted to righteousness, who are mighty in memorizing and using the Scriptures, who keep the Lord’s Day holy and refreshing, who are broken by the consciousness of sin, who are thrilled by the wonder of free grace, who are stunned into humble silence by the riches of God’s glory, who are persevering constantly in prayer, who are ruthless in self-denial, who are fearless in public witness to Christ’s lordship, who are able to unmask error and blow away doctrinal haze...who are content with what they have and trusting the promises of God, who are patient and kind and meek when life is hard.”
.
And a few other prayers of my own:
May you, Lord, build a people who are intellectually hospitable, radically generous with their resources, passionately welcoming of the outsider, who are able to endure hardship with unwavering faith, who are more captivated by the person across the table than they are in their own reflection, who dispense grace quickly, who have eternity so encompass their thoughts that it would drive their every motivation and permeate every private, unobservable moment, who’s internal devotion would far eclipse their external worship.
.
He is faithful to do all these things @kxchurchoc fam. May this bring you as much hope as it has me today.
A big day for Geneva Mae. We got all dressed up an A big day for Geneva Mae. We got all dressed up and took her out to get her ears pierced and now she looks so grown up and I just can’t stand how fast this is all going and I have definitely shed a few tears every time I catch a glimpse of her. 😭😍💛
334 days ago, on a gloomy Thursday afternoon in Ma 334 days ago, on a gloomy Thursday afternoon in March of last year, Chris got a phone call that would change everything for our small church plant. The school we rented space from was closing its doors for the next two weeks to slow the spread of the Coronavirus. Our first thought: "two weeks is such a long time to be separated as a church." Our team scrambled like crazy for the next 48 hours to find the best solution and we found ourselves with an option none of us felt excited about: online church. What was supposed to be two weeks turned out to be an indefinite season of homelessness for King's Cross.
.
For the last 334 days we endured countless awkward zoom calls, distanced social gatherings (mixed with friends who disliked masks and longed for a hug and others who had to muster up all the courage in the world just to show up). We began gathering biweekly in a friend's backyard for church, enduring temperatures in the 100s before 10am and at times so cold that our toes went numb. We've broken bread in the rain just so we could be together and found a million creative ways to maintain connection with one another. But I won't lie, it has been so painful.
.
If I knew that those two weeks would turn into 334 days of homelessness for our church, I would have been crushed. But the Lord, in his kindness, only allowed us to see what was right before us and in the meantime was weaving together something more beautiful than we ever could have imagined. In this past year our compulsion to be consumeristic with church was put to the test as our gatherings were stripped down and we gathered simply to worship and nothing more. Our temptation to keep people at arms length was drawn out, close to its furthest conclusion, and reveled how vitally important it is to have people in your life. The value of communion and the preciousness of gathering and singing out alongside each other were highlighted when it was taken away from us. This year only proved to strengthen our church and prove how valuable it is to have a people to belong to.
.
Last night our 334 days of homelessness came to an end. We have a home and we are so excited to see what’s next! Love you @kxchurchoc fam!
These days we have been on a relentless search to These days we have been on a relentless search to discover what is good right before our eyes.
.
If I'm being honest, this has never come naturally to me. I have always had an acute awareness for what is broken or lacking in the world and myself. This disposition fit well into my Christian faith early on. I began to discover that because of the fall, things really were broken all along, far more than I was ever aware of. Left to my own devices though, my vision could easily be plagued by pervasive pessimism.
.
I think about this a lot, especially as I scroll through social media and engage in conversations about the world around us. Pessimism seems to be plaguing our days. The thing about it is, it subtly begins to color everything.
▪️It affects the way we view our friends. Is our natural disposition to identify how they could be better or impulsively celebrate evidence of God's grace in their life?
▪️It affects the way we view our circumstances. Is our natural bent to feel as if our unique set of vocational challenges, family dynamics, financial limitations, unmet desires too hard for others to identify with? Or do we allow those things to draw us to the Lord and shape our empathy toward others?
▪️Pessimism can affect the way we engage with people unlike ourselves. Are we inclined to be skeptical, or do we give people the benefit of the doubt?
▪️Do we comb through the headlines and fret over the widespread effects of sin, or do we search for evidence of God's good work in the world?
.
While Christians surely are heralders of truth, unafraid to acknowledge the dark, we are surely also the only ones fixed to shine a light in it. The truth we proclaim is one of hope, not of despair.
.
Maybe you’re spending your days fighting crime or changing diapers or teaching bored high schoolers. Regardless, Paul’s correction to the Philippian church has been ringing in my ears and I think it’s a good exhortation for us all: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (Phillipans 4:8). #everymomentholy

Footer

Homegoing is the online home of Alyssa Poblete, a writer in Southern California.

  • Plant
  • Gather
  • Dwell
  • Grow
  • Savor

Subscribe

Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates.

Copyright © 2021 · Wellness Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in