This week, I came across an intriguing quote attributed to Craig D. Lounsbrough, that reads, “Greatness is born of ordinary men who decided to work extraordinarily hard” (GoodReads). For good or bad, Lounsbrough’s quote speaks to our innate human ability to pursue, actualize, and even produce success in our lives. Transparently, I do not know Craig or the context of his quote, but I do think this quote captures how a world of self-made men and women subconsciously believe that working extraordinarily hard will make us great. I think that our insatiable consumeristic hunger for more possessions, accomplishments, and affirmations is often a pursuit of greatness for good and selfish reasons. We do not always see ourselves in pursuit of greatness, but if we would substitute greatness with whatever pursuit you want to pursue or are currently after (goodness, comfort, contentment, etc.), I think the quote will challenge you. Our human nature believes that greatness (goodness, comfort, contentment, etc.) is born of men (and women) who decide to work extraordinarily hard. Rather, I am continually reminded in the scriptures and my life, the surprisingly way less does more.
Taking inventory of my pursuits.
It takes something out of the norm to make us reflect on our pursuits and how we work extraordinarily hard. Last week, an unexpected health complication with my diabetes (affecting my heart rate and breathing) took me by ambulance to the emergency room. Earlier that day, not helping my health complication, I had fueled myself with enough caffeine to make it through an all-day meeting at work and also to motivate myself through most of the night. Since then, I have reflected on how often we find ways to force ourselves beyond ourselves and our normal capacities (such as caffeine) to feed our insatiable consumeristic hunger and pursuits.
Though I was discharged early the next morning, I did not originally want to go into the hospital, both for financial reasons and because I had a task list of items at home that I needed to get done. Even as I rode into the ambulance, I felt embarrassed, because I had an agenda for the evening that I wanted to get to and at that moment I could not even handle driving myself to the hospital. Even after being discharged from the hospital, and a day spent at home resting, I felt embarrassed because I had work and a growing agenda that I could not get to.
The past few days, if anything, have helped me to become aware of the level at which discontent unsettles me, accomplishment energizes me, and stillness bothers me. In this forced stillness, I found myself reflecting on how stillness creates an undoing in me because I value busyness, accomplishment, and work. For me, my insatiable hunger for accomplishment has never been one that looks for riches, belongings, or notoriety, but rather I love burning the wick at both ends to make myself useful in good ways. I suspect there are many people with an unhealthy desire for good things.
In the introductory post on this blog, I reflected on how consumerism has prevented us from experiencing a quiet life. It has redefined our sacred spaces with programs, and our relationships as transactional endeavors, and consumerism’s disposable realities have left an alarming and remarkable degradation in the natural world around us. Our busyness prevents us from seeing that. In my second post, I explored means to counteract the hunger in our lives by living with a rhythm of stillness (Paul’s intent in 1 Thessalonians 4:11). This week, I think there are some important things to learn about how stillness helps us realize the surprising way less achieves more.
Consumeristic Hunger Often Goes Unnoticed.
Our insatiable consumeristic hunger for more possessions, accomplishments, and affirmations has the potential to be our downfall if it becomes the single most driving reality of our existence. I think that the problem is, far too often we cannot identify the force behind our insatiable consumeristic hunger, nor can we often identify how much prominence our pursuits have in our lives at any given moment. Mainly, because we value being busy, we seem to have the inability to identify what force is driving our pursuits, or how much it is driving our pursuits. Busyness makes it hard for us to even admit that we have an insatiable consumeristic hunger for more possessions, accomplishments, and affirmations. Life wins when it keeps us busy and distracted from identifying what is driving our hunger and pursuits.
Like with many blind spots in our lives, it is easier to identify an insatiable consumeristic hunger at play in those we work with, are related to, or are friends with – much more than we may be able to see an unchecked pursuit or hunger in ourselves. Like with physical hunger, the hunger behind our pursuits often lies unseen, it is felt but not understood, and this hunger hankers with a craving with little reflection on why. In the most animalistic way, we merely know that we hunger and our gut leads the way toward what we believe will bring us satisfaction.
We are notably distracted in seasons that oppose us with pain, problems, and persecution. Too often we stay busy to feel alive. We feed our hunger to feel accomplished. Our lives are filled with attempts to survive or get ahead. The threat of these seasons keeps us unaware of how our body is responding to certain pursuits and hunger.
This is why Paul writes about living quiet lives or lives of stillness to the church in Thessalonians, a church where the powers and principalities are persecuting and opposing them. In such a time of trouble and tension, the trap might have been to work harder to get ahead as individuals or to work harder as the church to carry the mission of God, or to work harder to save the church. Such actions might even seem like good pursuits but I believe they are what Paul is speaking against as he says, make it “your ambition to lead a quiet life” (1 Thessalonians 4:11). The word for quiet is essential for understanding this wisdom, as I looked in my previous post, is a Sabbath-like way of living that is defined by stillness before God. The more stillness we experience, the more aware we become.
Perhaps greatness is found in not doing more, but doing less.
Greatness is found in not doing more, but doing less.
The idea of greatness found in doing less, not more, is an idea that is undeniably throughout the scriptures. In Proverbs 5, the scriptures define the unwise as the one whose deeds ensnare them, and with their “lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their great folly” (Proverbs 5:22-23). The folly of the unwise, in Proverbs, is that they are led by an insatiable consumeristic hunger that knows no discipline or stillness in their life (discipline is developed in stillness).
To the author of Ecclesiastes, the folly of the unwise is their involvement in toiling after an achievement that comes “from one person’s envy of another” – which becomes a meaningless “chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 4:4). He goes on to say that it is better to have “only one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 4:6). The word for tranquility represents a sense of stillness, rest, tranquility, and/or quietness. Like with Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 4:11, the author of Ecclesiastes upholds stillness. In fact, he upholds stillness to the point where he believes that it is better to have just one hand in stillness than two hands working to chase the wind – or get ahead in life. In busyness, we chase the wind with little awareness of what is causing us to do so.
As I mentioned in my last post, the well-known Psalm 46:10 from David captures God calling us to see that it is in the stillness that we know God is God. However, the full verse also communicates that it is in stillness that God is exalted (Psalm 46:10). In our stillness, God is exalted, in our stillness not our laborious toil for the kingdom of God. This stillness is found throughout David’s life and it is something David evidently came to understand through all of his laborious grind, and that is why David says God makes “me lie down in green pastures” (Psalm 23:2). David realizes that when God is able to direct the plans, the result is an overwhelming and restful sense of stillness in green pastures.
Likewise, in the New Testament, Paul tells the church in Corinth, that it is not in our strength that we experience Christ’s power, but rather God’s power and presence “is made perfect in [our] weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Again, it is God’s greatness that is exalted and released as we practice being still. I believe the early church understood this, and this is one reason why the early church added a closing line to the Lord’s Prayer, a line that reminds us that it is God’s Kingdom, power, and glory, forever and ever – not our own greatness. Though this is just a sample of passages we could unpack, I do believe the scriptures reveal that greatness is found in not doing more, but doing less.
I can say that, but I just haven’t found how to get there myself yet.
Closing Thoughts
The recent complication with my health has served me a moment of stillness that has been a stark reminder that, in the whirlwind of busyness, we risk losing sight of the forces driving our pursuits. The call to embrace stillness that is echoed through the wisdom of the scriptures challenges the notion that greatness is born of ceaseless toil. In the overwhelming consumeristic and busy cultural expectations in our lives, we need to navigate the path of self-discovery to discover what is behind our ambitions and embrace the surprising way less achieves more. In that journey, consider these three practical questions.
- How can I force myself to experience an extended sense of stillness to develop a greater awareness of what ambitions and false beliefs are at play in my life?
- What do I believe busyness and overextending myself will accomplish for me, and why do I believe that will prove fruitful?
- If I prioritize awkward stillness in each day, and week, what scriptural passage might I keep before me to remind myself that stillness works?
Works Cited
“Quote by Craig D. Lounsbrough: “Greatness Is the Born of Ordinary.” Accessed October 17, 2023. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9056309-greatness-is-the-born-of-ordinary-men-who-decided-to.
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