Self-assertiveness

I was listening to a Rich Mullins DVD this weekend, and in one interview he was talking about self-assertiveness. He used the example of a parent telling his kid, "Son, you see what you want in life and you go after it." Mullins made the comment that we have bought into the lie about asserting your self. Asserting your self is not the key to happiness, he said. Look at what it does. Happiness seems to be contained in this thing that you are looking for, you go after it, and you either get it and find that it is not satisfying or you are constantly chasing it and never getting it.

He brings up the example of David. Shepherd boy with big dreams of slaying Philistines. His brothers get to go off to war, while he is at home watching after sheep. His dad calls him up to the house one day and says, "David, I have a big job for you!" David's eyes light up, as he thinks about the possibilities. And his dad says, "I need you to go and deliver these sandwiches to your brothers." How emasculating that must have felt.

The argument then continues: the correct attitude is not self-assertiveness but submissiveness. The David story shows God's brilliance. He was training David's submissiveness. As Mullins makes the point, "After you have learned to submit, you might eventually get the chance to lead. But if you haven't learned to submit, you can't possibly lead. If you have learned to listen, you have got something you can say. But if all you do is talk, then you've not really got anything to say."

I was letting some of the implications of that settle in. I know that that is a tough idea to buy into for us. We tend to be told so much to assert ourselves. The opposite seems so wrong, seems to be an absolute guarantee of getting stepped on. We are convinced we would "be a nobody." I find the temptation to find relief by finding something we can do to be a powerful internal pressure. We try to assert some fragile sense of self and end up feeling pretty crushed. I have a motto on that: if you are trying to show how great you are, you are going to show how great you are. Let's rely on God's greatness, eh?