Desiring to Be Like God: The Original "Better Than" Attitude
In addition to inhabiting a “what’s in it for me” society, we live in a “better than” world. We always want to do “better than that.” My job is better than yours, or my (fill in the blank) house, wife, husband, car, church, way of worship, football team, education is better than yours… the list, of course, goes on!
In our innate desire to do our very best, we humans tend to compete, even if we are born with a generally non-competitive temperament. Desiring to achieve excellence isn’t the problem: it can be aligned with the maxim, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” But where we humans get caught up is in our pride, just as Adam and Eve did in the garden.
Like Adam and Eve, we want to do “better than” everyone, rising above and outdoing everyone around us. In some way, it makes us feel smarter and more powerful than our peers. These were the same simple temptations the serpent dangled in front of Adam and Eve.
Rather than playing the comparison game, perhaps God would be better served by the “better for” approach. Rather than being better than everyone around us, let us be better for God. Instead of looking around at everyone else, we should be looking straight up.
Our good priests remind us of this all the time. The only way to achieve a “better for” path is by focusing only on God: listening to God’s will for our own selves and our own families. By God’s own design, my path is not the same as your path, though it may be similar…and your path is not better than mine.
In this way, we can appreciate each person that walks alongside of us and each path that veers slightly differently than our own. In this way, we can still achieve excellence, not in an effort to do better than everyone else, but rather to be better for the greater glory of God.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for posting on this topic–I hope it leads to some interesting discussions.
I agree that “mine is better than yours” is a sign of our fallen nature, and not what we are made for.
I may be wrong, but I see that in a world full of imperfections and man-made defects, we have frequently have to decide that “this is better than that”–better for my spiritual life, better for my family, my children. We also have a duty, in humility and obedience to Christ, to speak up and speak out when we see heresy, scandal, or sin posing in attractive garb and leading little ones astray in the Body of Christ.
So not everyone who says “this is better than that” means “mine is better than yours”, and certainly not “I am better than you.” I would say that most people don’t mean that. At least not the people I know.
To make true distinctions of value, to rightly DISCRIMINATE (not a dirty word!) is an act of love and obedience, not pride and pomp. To articulate these distinctions in fair and charitable conversation with others, to explore them, and to revise and correct them when conversation reveals more of the truth, is an essential part of Christian community.
Speaking of “this is better than that”, what in tarnation is up with the soft-porn cartoon vampire ad over on the right hand side of the page this morning?
Hanson, is this really worth the pizza money? I’ll buy the pizza if you take this demonic siren-song off of Catholic Phoenix.
I just was repulsed by another one of those kinds of ads. I wish I could sound like my one-year-old who says eeeeeeeeyyyyew.
Atticus concurs. Ads=repulsive.