A Means To An End
A few years ago I met a guy (I will call him Bob) at a non-profit event I was attending. Bob was a really nice guy. We sat for a while at the fundraiser’s reception and talked under the beautiful Southern California night. Bob asked me about my work and I could see the wheels turning in his head. I could tell that Bob had an idea and eventually he revealed to me that he had some business deals in the works and he was in need of a multimedia person to help him.
A few weeks later Bob and I had lunch and he shared those ideas and plans. He asked me if I was interested in working with him. I was happy to get the work, so Bob and I quickly became friends. We met for dinner and beers to begin developing our ideas and to get to know each other better. But like many entrepreneurs, Bob had a lot of irons in the fire and so he’d kind of drop of the radar for a while. A pattern developed with Bob. He’d get excited about something, would ask me to start working on it and then I would go weeks…sometimes months without hearing from him. Then suddenly I’d get a call from Bob. He’d want to get together…catch up and see how life was treating me. So we’d meet, Bob would get excited about some idea, he’d ask me to work on some stuff, I’d do what he asked and then he’d drop off the map again.
Finally I realized something about Bob. He was a great guy but Bob wasn’t really interested in me as a person. He was interested in what I brought to the table. I had a skill set that he could benefit from and so Bob befriended me to take advantage of that skill set. A friendship with me was merely a means to an end.
I mention Bob because I realized that the pattern he and I fell into is pretty common in ALL KINDS of relationships. I think one of the biggest contributing problems is that people tend to be pretty selfish. Relationships are viewed as a means to an end. We spend a lot of time looking at people that we claim we love and cherish, but if you were to really get down to it, what we really mean is that they bring some kind of benefit to us.
Healthy relationships operate completely opposite to that, however. And that’s why I think healthy relationships are becoming more and more scarce. Marriages fall apart, children despise their parents, brothers and sisters resent each other, friends quit interacting and families quit functioning when the parties involved look at each other simply as a way to get what they ultimately want. Look around you…you can’t deny that something is wrong. It’s selfishness and until we break this self-centered cycle, we’re going to see dysfunction prevail.
The greatest tragedy of all, however, is that we treat God the same way. Walk into an evangelical church sometime…you’re likely to hear someone telling you that if you love God and commit your way to him, then you’re going to be blessed by him. It’s a “me focused” gospel that tries to convince you that if you follow Christ, you’re troubles are going to disappear. So the focus is on making your troubles go away…not on God.
Our Lord is not the means to an end…He IS the end. The bible tells us that when we follow Christ we must die to ourselves…in other words we have to quit worrying about “what’s in it for me?” If you love God and commit your way to him…TRULY, you’re likely to face some incredibly tough times. Just look in the Bible. The most famous people in that book who were considered saints had to endure some of the worst situations ever known. And the reason why is because God’s message to us all is that no matter how bad it gets…He is enough. Period.
Lastly, the less I’m focused on myself, the more I’m available to BE the means to THE end for the people I love…by that I mean that I’m able to be Jesus to other people.
