Perpetual improvement can be a curse. The desire to grow, learn, and improve are all godly, but they can also steal that very thing they are after: satisfaction.
If you read quotes by Martin Luther, you know he was a man who really enjoyed living. He laughed, enjoyed good beer, loved sex, and enjoyed the company of friends. His love affair with enjoying life wasn’t always a reality. Growing up in a household where he was pushed educationally to improve was given over to disappointing those who pushed him when he joined the monastery. In the monastery he learned that despite a constant focus on self-improvement, inadequacy was the repetitive residue. This is not to say that improvement is unnecessary, but how exhausting! Improvement can be slavery within itself, especially in affluent societies where comparisons are like window shopping.
It wasn’t till Luther discovered the gospel that he began to learn to laugh. We might describe it as “already accepted, not yet perfected”. Luther was a ferocious scholar; his writings, his students, even his wife would attest to this fact. But Luther loved to laugh. It was as if he could enjoy the moment knowing he was already accepted, but then enjoy the path of not yet perfected. Because of Jesus, a great life of living as loved.
I confess that I don’t know how to laugh really well. The bane of the modern day evangelical moment can be continual access to great preachers, books, even devotional helps, that, if we are not careful, can lead to a self-improvement witch-hunt, that, like Luther, leaves us with a repetitive residue of inadequacy. The mantra of inadequacy steals joy faster than shooting stars. Improvement is important; the sanctifying work of God enables us to enjoy God, which is the recipe of satisfaction. However, the phrase “stop and smell the roses” or “get out of the rat race”, applies as we must stop and consider our ability to live in the present “already accepted” critical understanding of the gospel: Joyful living demands it. The tyranny of improvement must throw off its continual chatter and give way to frequent times of joy and laughter that define satisfaction. It as if we need to stop and remember the father saying to us “[Because of Jesus] You’re good!”.
Luther knew the sanctifying work; he was not avoiding or ignorant of it. But he knew how to enjoy life in the already accepted. No doubt this is one of the chief resolutions of the protestant reformation. Today, and every day, I want to live in the already accepted. I want to enjoy laughing with friends, good drink, intimacy, and all that God created for us to discover more of Him. I want to live in the “already accepted”, pausing for a time out of the tyranny “not yet perfected”.