Wisdom 34 The Need to be Right

[HKHaugan]

Wisdom 34 Jesus and the Need to be Right

 So far, we have put our human condition under a spiritual microscope. We have seen that we operate in two dimensions, the seen and the unseen. In that two-dimensional existence, one overtly obvious conclusion stands out. Each of us is alone, isolated in a visible body, driven by needs that are invisible. We share that condition with every human being on earth, every human being that has ever lived and ever will live.

 Now we will zero in on an anxiety-producing subject we have already mentioned, the need to be right. It’s unsettling, guilt evoking and tyrannical.

 First, the need to be right is unsettling. For many just bringing up the subject is something that makes us uneasy, unsure and uncertain. It burdens our aloneness. How many times haven’t you heard or felt, “No matter what I do I can’t seem to get it right,” or “I’ve got the kind of boss that can never be pleased,” or “I can’t deal with him, he’s a perfectionist.” When we fill out resumes there is the urgency to make ourselves look right, to make a right impression. We meet new people and we want to appear right. We are immediately aware of the need to be right, to do right and to be seen right. This is the need that precedes the awareness of the ultimate needs for faith, overcoming sin and being born spiritually. Could Jonah have been laboring under the pressure to be right, couldn’t handle it and ran?

 Every day we carry the burden of having to be right and what might happen if we are not.   ‘Rightly’ so. The very essence of self-consciousness seems to demand, necessitate and dictate being right as a state of mind, being and emotion. It is a must within and a pressure from without.   But how do we acquire the invisible ability to be right? “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Again, who and what do we trust to be right?

 So much of human response is swallowed up in the concern to ‘be right’ and ‘get it right.’ The needs for recognition, acceptance, fulfillment, success and accomplishment are punctuated by the need to be right. Even in our moments of pleasurable escapes like vacations, entertainment, hobbies and sports, there is the need for them to be right, to be planned right, experienced right and remembered right. If we are alone, we need to be alone right. Right?

 Second, the need to be right is accusatory. We fear not being right because not being right brings another spiritual condition, guilt. Regardless of what the standard for right is no one measures up and guilt results. Guilt accentuates our deep inner sense of aloneness. We question our worth, doubt our confidence and cower in the presence of possible failure and bemoan when we do fail.   We are guilty and feel guilty for being guilty. How do we deal with guilt? Could Jonah’s flight be the flight from being right? Guilt to the hilt?

 Third, the need to be right is tyrannical. Recognizing the need means we don’t have it to begin with. It points to a flaw within, a void that always needs filling. We are conscious that there is a right, but it is elusive. We tend to compromise with the standards of others in whatever place we find ourselves at any moment. We not only live in the tyranny of the imperfect moment, we live under the tyranny of the imperfect standards of others which is really the tyranny of fear.

 Jesus knew and faced this unsettling, accusatory and tyrannical unseen need that aloneness brings. His perfect faith was how He focused. He dealt with Himself, His disciples, the expectations of others and their hostile hypocrisies by trusting His Father’s will. He came into our aloneness experiencing that same need by facing it every day. Through faith in His Father, He died to meet that need for us and rose from the dead to prove that His right is the ultimate standard for being right, thinking right and doing right.

 When we receive Jesus the struggle to be right takes a different turn. Instead of being led by the attitudes and opinions of others we are led by a Savior who is right in every detail of life. He is not only a Savior in the moment of decision, but He is a Savior whose faith saved us to know Him as the personification of being right. It’s why He is called the Righteous One, the One who is always right, perfectly right. The key is to let Him be right through us. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of being right and makes the life of Jesus real in our hearts. It is faith that is the vehicle for His right.

 Now watch this, Jesus is the Lord, the vertical beam of the Cross. Jesus is the Savior, the horizontal beam of the Cross. When He tells us to take up our cross it means that every next moment will demand a choice, a decision.

 By faith, we look up and pray to Jesus as Lord. So, the first step is always to make Him the focus for the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts. The vertical beam of our cross.

 Then, our second step, by faith we follow Jesus as Savior. We trust the Holy Spirit to guide us in the moment by moment issues this world sets before us. The horizontal beam of our cross.

 Now perhaps we can see why Jonah is a sign, a foundational picture for all of us. He is the unresolved person who believes but struggles without God to be right. Jonah needed a Savior. He was right to recognize and turn to God. He was wrong when he turned away from Him. But we are blessed by being on this side of the Cross and the Resurrection. We have both a personal Savior and Lord who is always there in every next moment of choice and decision. The world killed Jesus with the Cross and the risen Jesus gives us life through the Cross.