“Look at what they make you give.” It is a famous refrain implicitly woven through the Bourne-trilogy, classically quoted by Clive Owen in The Bourne Identity (2002).
The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) symbolise what occurs in any of our lives when we reach the point of pinnacle performance. There is a tragic irony in this thread that connects them all. All the “assets” in the Bourne films give their lives for the cause, and yet the cause seems futile in the end. The Firm wins.
True to life, the Firm ALWAYS wins.
The Firm MUST win.
That the Firm wins is important
in the proving of our commitment.
You may think, “WHAT?!”
This is WHY such precipices exist...
Do we resent a commitment to the futile,
or do we move on beyond it to overcome?
So many get stuck in the futility of giving ALL,
seeing all they have committed to this life as a waste,
never sensing that they are so close to the answer.
It is a wicked irony that the answer
—even in the belly of futility—
is literally around the corner.
ALL CHRIST, OR NOTHING!
From a theological viewpoint, as Christians following Christ, so many of us have prayed the prayer, “Lord, I will do anything for You, and give You everything, from now on,” usually in some form of plea bargain, “Lord, get me out of this and I will follow You all the days of my life.”
We also may have genuinely prayed this sort of sold-out-to-God prayer in the adulation of pure conviction! All Christ, or nothing! And we find God sustains us in this spiritual fervour.
We find that God takes us up on our offer.
God convinces our heart that we are His in this.
And God, as He always does, proves faithful.
~
At some later stage, however, when our fervour has worn off a little, life smashes our hope, we face an irretrievable injustice, we burn out, or some other incomprehensible challenge thwarts us. We come to doubt the faithfulness of God.
We may come to rue that we ever
made the offer in the first place.
We arrive at that place that Job did.
We come to feel utterly defeated.
This, nevertheless, is an important step in the process—to comprehensively regret ever having committed so much. The reason this is so important is that we learn a lot, as Job did, from God revealing our heart—it was a bargaining prayer we prayed. It is often the penultimate step, however, because inevitably in the learning, humility gets us to a cherished place of absolute sustained surrender, which is ease, because we have learned humility is the only way that works.
Humility is the only undefeatable attitude.
Humility is the only sustainable attitude for life.
Humility is the bedrock of resilience, growth, and healing.
But humility does not come without a massive battle.
~
Ultimately it is in our quest to live at peace
with life and with everyone that sets us apart to God.
This is the true life of a Christ follower—
i.e., it is ALL for Him, or nothing!
And yet, it is a journey to arrive
at this humility of peace;
it can take a decade or two
of earnest getting-there.
LIFE’S ULTIMATE LESSON IS BEYOND FUTILITY
We must experience futility, and be driven hard into that form of oblivion, before we can transcend ourselves and truly become a truly-sold-out-to-God Jesus-follower. As life would have it, faith is eventually tested, and we fail a lot before our faith is proven in the fire.
Futility is a fiery crucible.
The only way to receive an indefatigable purpose
is to enter it through having endured futility.
This is what ancient Ecclesiastes validates:
the life wisdom of Solomon.
Life is at least partial naiveness
if we have not yet experienced futility.
Humility is an essential and
fundamental part of the answer.
Without entering and thereby learning to accept futility,
our hopes in these shades of adversity are dashed.
Forgiveness is centrally the behaviour of acceptance
and is the only viable response in situations of futility.
There is purpose BEYOND the futility in and of this life. We must experience and thereby endure the futility before we are able to judiciously choose a higher purpose. That higher purpose, the only higher purpose that makes any sense in the context of futility, can only be an eternal purpose, and we only reach for it BECAUSE of the futility we struggle with.
Futility, as we come to see it,
is both the gateway and thoroughfare
to genuine, faith-proved resilience.
Until we have been to futility—
and THROUGH it—
we will not choose wisely,
because the ultimate wisdom
is choosing a godly purpose,
despite the futility.
A God-follower is a volunteer;
they are not voluntold.
Futility otherwise drives us to despair, the only true purpose is beyond despair, and yet we must enter the starkness of the most haranguing despair to overcome it. What sustains us is love, for love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8). Many things fail but love never does.
“THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE”
There’s so much godly wisdom in a lot of rock ‘n’ roll songs. All wisdom is OF God.
I think of “The Things We Do for Love” by 10cc, for instance. I think it speaks about the intrinsic wisdom that there is in compromise, to allow a relationship or an arrangement to succeed, because both parties are willing to negotiate. And yet there are always times where parties don’t have an equal relationship, for instance, when a business decides to reorganise its structure, and we must accept what is within the rights of the business to do.
“A compromise would surely help the situationAgree to disagree but disagree to partWhen after all it’s just a compromise ofThe things we do for love, the things we do for love.”
(Part of 10cc’s lyrics – The Things We Do for Love)
The fact is love is nothing without preparing to lose. We must be prepared to lose in order, that we might stay in the game, and because all of us have skin in the game, so to speak, it represents the vast portion of wisdom to simply hang in there.
Love has a broader vision
than simply getting its own way.
Love thereby accepts and accommodates loss, and is therefore unfaltering, because love never ultimately gives up. Love does not so much count the cost, and it is indeed the opposite. Love gives up what cannot be kept, to gain what cannot be lost—yes, love, that is borne on a healed heart.
Love endures even in loss.
Love endures in faith and in hope.
Love is therefore a choice of courage.
This is understanding that love requires us to give all even as we risk all. True love subsists in risking everything for righteousness, simply because it is the right thing to do, which is to give and to keep on giving—in faith, for love, in the exemplification of hope.
We find in this that love and forgiveness
are intrinsically linked.
Judge for yourself and see:
love and forgiveness are inherent
in the way life works.
FORGIVENESS AS AN ANTHEM OF LIFE’S PURPOSE
Until we can see these truths emerge in our own lives, we cannot fathom that what seems like comprehensive defeat is actually the cusp of victory.
Forgiveness looks like defeat to the perishing. It is always 10 or 15 steps (or even one) too far. They never sense that forgiveness is a journey of faith that takes them BEYOND defeat.
Indeed, as the purpose of life, forgiveness is the ONLY way to victory—victory over self and for others, and centrally, victory for God, in the name of God, for we have placed Him above ourselves. Forgiveness IS love.
Forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves,
and to others, and not least God,
for our future, for our hope,
for the life abundant between now and eternity.
Forgiveness gives us back the future.
But bitterness ransoms the future.
Forgiveness is what we ‘give’ to our future.
I hope I have demonstrated in this article, the importance of reaching a place of utter futility, because it is a place we must reach, in coming to the end of ourselves, in order that we must start at the beginning, again, with God.
Much of the time, bitterness and resentment about the injustices that have gone against us must be reconciled as futility before we can move on, accepting what we cannot change, and in that we find the Holy Grail of the Meaning of Life.
We, ourselves, though we would like it to be,
are NOT the Centre of the Universe. God is.
Indeed, the quest for maturity stands upon the precipice: can we let go of every desire of self? Is there something more fundamentally and eternally important? Can we not prefer to give up our claims to ourselves in preference for taking up claims for God?
Only when we have done this do we genuinely understand how and why James chapter one says, “Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds.” Such turns of phrase are otherwise perplexing and seem not to apply to us.
Forgiveness is the anthem of life’s purpose.
What seems utterly ridiculous to the perishing is absolutely life in all its abundance to those who understand the wisdom woven into and through every vestige of life itself through forgiveness.
Forgiveness is the purpose of God in life,
to arrive at acceptance
for that which we cannot change.
That, there, is God’s wisdom and peace.
God’s ultimate goal for each of us is
our experiencing His peace in forgiveness.
The more God’s grace flows into and through
our lives, the more we live His purpose.
~
How do we maintain our mental,
emotional, and spiritual health?
A lot of the time, the answer is forgiveness.
POSTSCRIPT: many conspiracy theories abound in this life. To nurture such thought when our perception is so impressionable is self-defeating. It leads only to suspicion and an attitude of intrinsic bitterness. This article has set out the better way. Forgiveness is the purpose of life and of God in each our lives.
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