Why is it that we appreciate more what we earn thourgh a laborious process? Could there be any connection between this and the fact that we seem to loose the capacity to appreciate something or someone we are being offered for free? What is free or costs little is considered cheap (term that I have heard being used in regards to both things and people). And what is cheap almost implicitly does not have a lot of value. The value of something or someone is direct proportional with the cost of acquisition – seems to be the reasoning of many people. Free and valuable altogether has become almost a paradox. Even God’s gift for us can become unsatisfactory and cheap because, well, just because we don’t know how to appreciate what we are being offered for free..?
Some of us really have a hard time accepting what is free also because we feel that we don’t deserve it. We feel like we cannot owe something unless we’ve earned the right to master it. It wasn’t always like that. Adam and Eve did not have to earn their right to life; it was offered to them for free. Neither did they have to earn their home-garden; it was a wedding gift from their Father. I wonder what capacity has humanity lost? Is it humility? Are we not humble enough to receive something we did not work for, something we did not earn ourselves? Could it be a nuance of selfishness too?
It is said that a guy appreciates a girl when he’s struggled for quite some time in the process of winning her. I’ve heard this over and over again, so I got used to think that this is just the way it is, and therefore this is the way it should be. I might be wrong, but could it be that what we see is a strong tendency to appreciate people based on how involved we’ve been in the process of winning them, rather then based on the intrinsic value the person carries? And if so, would that not be selfishness? After all it does not do any good to someone to value him/her based on your effort in winning him/her. It might award your pride with a grin though.
Pastor Denton Rhone defines happiness as “to want what you have”. On the same note with this definition, I think that much more important than winning someone through intense effort is being able to keep that person. This is where the highest angel in heaven and the parents of humanity seemed to have stumbled. Adam and Eve did not have a hard time receiving God’s gifts; they had a hard time keeping it. About Lucifer it is not recorded that he had a hard time receiving gifts from God; he had a hard time keeping them though. In both cases, the root of the problem was the same: they wanted something else then what they had received; they wanted something “more” (their reasoning proved to be lacking though and what was thought to be more was demonstrated to be less, much less!).
God is contantly offering Himself completely and freely to us and He wishes that we offer ourselves completely and freely to Him. Before the fall everything was free, yet valuable. Jesus’ sacrifice as a cost for our redemption only shows how low sin has taken us that such a price was needed. Therefore the idea of cost (cost of redemption, etc.) makes sense only in the context of sin (in other words - a cost was required only when sin appeared). Following this line of reasoning, isn’t sin the root of “pricing”? In heaven everything and everyone was uniquely valuable, and I mean valuable at superlative!
Staying in the same topic, one more issue is that of growth in connection with the satisfaction of hard work. Challenges no doubt play an important role in the growth process. Back to Adam and Eve: they were supposed to tend the garden, but that did not seem to have been some effortful occupation. They were enjoying both the work and the result of their occupation. They did not need to labor hard in order to take pleasure in the outcome of their employment (all this before the fall). I can only imagine them growing though, yet their growth did not seem to have the same groundwork we place upon it. DO WE - SINFUL CREATURES, REALLY HAVE TO LEARN IT ALL “THE HARD WAY, OR IS THERE ANOTHER WAY?”
• How can we grow without expecting growth to take place necessarily as a result of an elaborate (most of the times painful) process?
• How can we grow by receiving things that are given us for free or for little (“cheap stuff”)?
• How can we learn to appreciate people for the value they have rather then labeling them based on our effort in winning them?
1 comments:
I think one of the reasons humans have a difficult time with receiving free gifts is our desire for control. We feel that if we have earned the right to have something, then we can be sure to keep it by our own efforts. However, if we did nothing to earn something, then it can be taken from us at any time.
Basically, as a Christian, it comes down to faith. Whether we're talking about salvation or a romantic relationship, we have to have faith that it is a gift from God, regardless of our own efforts. This is hard to do if we feel undeserving, because we might have a hard time trusting that the gift will stay and not be taken away.
As for growth, I think we can grow even when receiving something for free through the same avenue: faith. We struggle to trust, and grow as a result.
Anyway, good post. A lot of thought-provoking questions.
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