Did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped
We live in a culture of grasping.
The mainstream culture holds up CEOs, celebrities and billionaires as standards of success. “Be like them to be admired.” To be known is to be at the top.
In schools, teachers hold up our classmate: the student council president who has perfect grades and is still somehow involved in 3 extra-curricular activities. Top universities are held in front of us like carrots. “Your life will be perfect if you get in.” We get attention and recognition by achieving things.
Closer to home, our parents and family pressure us too: “Why can’t you be more like your cousin? He just got into Oxford, you know?” “You’re going to end up homeless if your grades are like this.” “You’d better get your act together, you’re embarrassing the family name.” We’re accepted if we meet our family’s expectations.
And even in our relationships, the most intimate of spheres, it seems that we have to earn our beloved’s affection. We need to have a chiseled body, a charming personality and have a million Instagram followers. We are loved by our beloved but only with certain preconditions.
The Culture of Grasping
These are the two messages being broadcasted by the culture of grasping:
First, that to become happy we need these things to the nth degree: wealth, power, pleasure and fame. We need to be loaded and be in a position of leadership. We should have the world’s greatest food and entertainment at our feet and we deserve people’s respect.
Second, the necessary reversal, that our current life is inadequate. As you are, you are nobody. Without accolades, no one will love you or pay attention to you. No one is looking out for you. As David Brooks puts it, in The Road to Character, we believe “that people get loved because they are kind, or funny, or attractive, or smart, or attentive” and definitely not for being themselves.
These two messages combine into one giant sucker punch. As we attempt to escape this sense of our own unworthiness, we get the world’s message quick: Get to the top. Do it faster and better than anyone else. In our quest for happiness, we learn to grasp. No one will give us what we deeply desire unless we have something to offer them in return, so go and get it for yourself. The world is a transactional rat race: you only get something by striving for it. As Brooks points out, we think that “the basic formula of the… world is that effort produces reward. If you work hard… you can be the cause of your own good life.” And so we follow, we chase. We grasp.
A Position of Weakness and Insecurity
And yet, as we engage in the culture of grasping, somehow, something is still missing. Even as we rack up long lists of achievements and qualities that make us desirable, there’s still an infinite longing in us that’s insatiable. Even after jumping through all the hoops, the steady contentment that was promised never materializes. Peace, joy, hope? What are these things?
With the sense of inner loneliness and inadequacy still present, we continue to chase and grasp in the hope that adding more things in our life will somehow make those sentiments disappear. We constantly seem to not have enough, to not be enough, to never be secure and content in the stillness.
In my early life, I was deeply immersed in the culture of grasping. I had in my mind a checklist of “things I needed to be happy”. A great body, perfect grades, leadership positions, championship trophies. In turn, my entire calendar was marshaled to obtain these objectives. When I wasn’t studying, I was in the gym. When I wasn’t in the gym, I was reading. When I wasn’t reading, I was rushing to another location. Every single minute of my day was optimised and geared towards hitting pre-set goals in my life.
But, in the middle of the night, when I looked into my soul, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself, I wasn’t happy being defined as just a bundle of accomplishments, accolades and titles. I was only respected because I did something. As Brooks put it, I tried to “establish self-worth by winning a great reputation” but I became “utterly dependent on the gossipy and unstable crowd” for my own identity. I didn’t have a steady center that held everything together. Who was I? I couldn’t really tell.
Is the culture of grasping what God intended for us?
Grasping and the Temptation of the Devil
Right at the beginning, in Genesis, we see this dynamic of grasping play out in our first parents.
In the creation account, man’s existence is a gift freely given by God. He is created “very good.” (Genesis 1:31) The rest of creation is a gift from God for men to enjoy and develop. Man readily accepts these gifts from God. He did not do anything to earn them. They were unmerited and graciously given. This is paradise: God giving and man receiving. Giving and receiving, not grasping.
God gifts creation to man with one condition: not to eat of the forbidden fruit. After all what is love if these is no freedom to reject love?
Later, the serpent comes along and casts doubt on God’s gift. Tempting Eve to reject God by eating of the forbidden fruit, he says “you will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:4–5). In his Theology of the Body, John Paul II says that, in this passage, the serpent “clearly implies casting doubt on the Gift and on Love, from which creation takes its origin as gift.” (TOB 26:4) The devil seems to be saying, “You want to be like God? You want love? You need to get it yourself. God is holding out on you. He won’t give it freely to you. You’d be so much better off if you’d just… grasp.”
Eve eats of the fruit and gives it to Adam too. At once, grace recedes from them. In their grasping, they lose their union with God and now realise their nakedness. Grasping led to their fall.
This is a remarkable insight. Here’s our fall in slow motion: First, we live in God’s grace and love. Second, the devil and the world casts doubts as to what we have received: “Does God really love you? Isn’t he just a tyrant holding out on you?” Third, we grasp and in doing so we reject God.
We can almost hear this rhetoric play out over and over and over in our lives.
We’ve learnt well from our original parents.
The Problem with Grasping
There’s something wrong with the narrative the culture of grasping advertises to us. We know grasping doesn’t work. Why?
This is because by grasping, we adopt a closed posture of single-minded pursuit. As such, we are not in the open posture of awaiting grace.
What is grace?
In Shaking the Foundations, Paul Tillich describes grace as “a wave of light breaks into our darkness and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know… Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intent anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted… And nothing is demanded of this experience… nothing but acceptance.” Grace is that divine affirmation that says, “God has already justified your existence.” It is the prodigal father saying, “‘My son… you are always with me, and everything I have is yours” (Luke 15:31).
Grace is the unmerited gift from God that comes to us every day. Brooks points out: “God’s protection and care come precisely because you do not deserve it and cannot earn it. Grace doesn’t come to you because you’ve performed well on your job or even made great sacrifices… Grace comes to you as part of the gift of being created.” Grace is God’s attempt to establish a relationship of giving and receiving with you.
The problem with grasping is that we grasp after something that is already gifted to us. Or as Jennifer Herdt says in Putting On Virtue, “God wants to give us a gift, and we want to buy it.” If we grasp, we shut ourselves off from grace. Instead of being patient and open, we are distracted and inattentive. We are not in a posture of receiving. If we are always chasing and wanting to be in control of everything, we can’t surrender and let in the divine love. It’s like the selfish football player who hogs the ball instead of passing the ball to receive it later to create a beautiful teamplay goal.
Two Roads
In Theology of the Body Explained, Christopher West asserts that “Man determines his fundamental disposition in life with one of two irreconcilable postures: receptivity or grasping”.
It is time for us to choose: Shall we become a man who grasps… or receives in love and then gives in love?
We know that grasping will not work. We act from a position of inadequacy, chasing all sorts of things that are guaranteed not to fill that hole in the center of our hearts. We know it will lead us down a road of discontentments and unfulfilled expectations.
Enter The Culture of Receiving
Let us therefore, get out of the culture of grasping and enter into a culture of receiving. Let us enter into a relationship with the good Father. A relationship of love — a relationship of pure receiving and giving. A relationship of amazing grace.
However, it must be said, receiving is no walk in the park. It requires us to unlearn many bad habits. “It’s surprisingly difficult to receive a love that feels unearned” as Brooks puts it. We aren’t used to being loved for the sake of it. We aren’t used to being out of control. But despite the challenges it involves, entering into a relationship with God is worth it because the truth is this: You have everything you need to be happy, right now. Let me repeat this: You have everything you need to be happy, right now.
Now, how do we receive grace?
Surrender.
Brooks says that salvation and meaning are actually won “when you raise the white flag of surrender and allow grace to flood your soul.” “The way to inner joy is not through agency and action, it’s through surrender and receptivity to God. Surrender… your will, your ambition, your desire to achieve victory on your own… acknowledge that God is the chief driver here and that he already has a plan for you.” What does this look like? The posture “is one of submission, arms high, wide open and outstretched, face tilted up, eyes gazing skywards, calm with patient but passionate waiting.” Imagine your life as a ball that you have gripped in your hands. This ball represents all your life: your career, extra activities, friendships, accolades, and even your future. Loosen your grip over this ball. Acknowledge that these “petty distinctions you earn for yourself do not really speak to your essential values as a human being.” And as you loosen this ball, give it to our Blessed Lord.
“One of the things you have to do in order to receive grace is to renounce the idea that you can earn it. You have to renounce the meritocratic impulse that you can win a victory for God and get rewarded for your effort. Then you have to open up to it. You do not know when grace will come to you.”
- David Brooks, The Road to Character
Next up. Surrender. Surrender. Surrender. This needs to become a daily habit. Surrender is not a one-time event but a continuous practice. Soon you will realise that your life has utterly changed. You will become more contented and grateful. And as you identify less with external accomplishments, you realise that the core of your heart has been replaced with a relationship with the good Father — you are a relationship with him.
For me, my breakthrough of grace came about when I realised that I based my entire life around grasping fame. I thought that to be happy, I had to be respected, and to get that I had to have it all. Upon reflections and sharing with spiritual directors, I realised that my entire life revolved around the pursuit of getting people’s attention and recognition. But I actually wanted love — love that could only come from God.
I cleared my life of grasping and allowed the divine grace to fill it. My life became a temple of prayer and gratitude. At a crucial moment, I was in the adoration room and through the thoughts of rejection and abandonment, I received the message “Is it not enough that the God of the universe love you?” and in that moment grace broke through.
A relationship with the good Father had been established. Increasingly, my life became not a noisy temple with many distractions and desires pulling me this way or that, but a space of proper worship of God. Masses, Eucharistic adoration and prayer were transformed. Instead of rushing through them like obligations, I began to see them as they were: encounters with Jesus Christ Himself. A time of rest and peace. There was a deepening of the surrender and I sank into the love God permeated the world with from its foundation.
This didn’t mean I stopped working, but I began to realise that as Brooks points out “it’s not that worldly achievement and public acclaim are automatically bad, it’s just that they are won on a planet that is just a resting place for the soul and not our final destination”. Knowing that “ultimate success is not achieved competition with others”, I was filled with spiritual food — a love, peace and joy that only God could give. I let go and received… and then went back out into the world to give freely.
Conclusion
In closing, let us model our lives in conformity with Christ himself:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:1–11
While the devil casts doubt into Adam and Eve about God’s grace in their lives, Jesus revels in being his son: “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” (John 17:24)
While our first parents closed themselves off to God’s love, Christ opened himself up to it. “Jesus said to the Father: ‘All I have is yours, and all you have is mine’” (John 17:10). He lives in the close, intimate, exchange of love with the Father — the dance of love.
While the world tells us to grasp, Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself”. He renounced the world and followed the will of God thus opening himself up to God. His “public work and effort was nestled in a total surrender.”
Protect me, O God; I trust in you for safety. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; all the good things I have come from you.” How excellent are the Lord’s faithful people! My greatest pleasure is to be with them. Those who rush to other gods bring many troubles on themselves. I will not take part in their sacrifices; I will not worship their gods. You, Lord, are all I have, and you give me all I need; my future is in your hands. How wonderful are your gifts to me; how good they are! I praise the Lord, because he guides me, and in the night my conscience warns me. I am always aware of the Lord’s presence; he is near, and nothing can shake me. And so I am thankful and glad, and I feel completely secure, because you protect me from the power of death. I have served you faithfully, and you will not abandon me to the world of the dead. You will show me the path that leads to life; your presence fills me with joy and brings me pleasure forever.
- Psalm 16
