Change the World

Y’all. I wanted to change the world.

I’ve shared this fun fact with some of you, but it’s worth revisiting. When I was a much younger person, I wanted to get into politics. Those of you who’ve known me for awhile aren’t surprised by this revelation. Those of you who’ve known me longer are going to remember specifically what kind of politics I wanted to get into: I wanted to be the President of the USA. 

As an adult who has seen some things, I’m no longer interested in this position for a variety of reasons. While I’m still pretty confident that I could set some things in order and fix a fair few problems, being the leader of a nation sounds really stressful. I don’t want to do it. I’m also not sure that things need to be fixed as much as just like unplugged, kicked a few times, and rebooted. Ok, I’m done talking about the future of democracy and the early nineties IT department. I want to talk about changing the world.

I grew up in a generation raised, in Christian spheres, on the idea of adventure. Life with Jesus was supposed to be an adventure. No matter where you came from or what your life was like before, if you gave your life to Jesus, now you could go on a great adventure. This was usually couched in the terms of international missions. Programs like The World Race were the epitome of this way of walking with Jesus. Honestly, I get it. Who doesn’t want their normal, ordinary life to be something more? When we’re given the opportunity to dream a little bit, most of us conceptualize a life that’s a little more adventurous than the one that we lead. Some of us even get to go out and live it. Nothing wrong with that. Exploring and adventure-seeking are part of the general human experience for many of us.

What was wrong with some of these ideas, as they were sold to young, millennial Christians, was that they minimized normal life. They created a celebrity culture that fed into the already raging culture wars and convinced young, millennial Christians that we were going to change the world. It was our destiny to “win” the world for Jesus and usher in some kind of theocratic utopia where women never talked and the men got to do everything that mattered, I think. That last part is a little of my own trauma, but I think that you’ll find it’s more true than many who preached this message are willing to admit.

Whatever the motivation or underlying ideas, the point is that I bought in hook, line, and sinker and I wanted to change the world. I was going to be the President of the United States, after all. Before I was really introduced to these ideas in their fullest expression, I was in high school and I was a high-achieving student. I still love learning and it’s pretty easy for me, but, when you’re young, this comes with all kinds of hopes/pressure for your future. People are talking about your potential and all the things that they just know you’re going to do when you grow up. Ready for another little-known fun fact? I was literally voted “Most Likely to Change the World” my sophomore year of high school. I can show you the year book if you don’t believe me. 

So, I graduated from high school with all of these high hopes and then was hit by the evangelical bus called “Adventure with Jesus”. Everything was going swimmingly until I became a real adult and the adventure wasn’t forthcoming. Neither was the realization of potential. For over ten years, I worked and toiled to change the world, only to be met with setback after setback, disappointment after disappointment. 

I can’t change the world.

Maybe I don’t have to?

I wanted to change the world because I wanted it to be better. I wanted to change the world because there was (is) so much injustice and inequity. I wanted to change the world, in my younger days, because I actually thought that I was better equipped to do something about it than anyone else. Turns out that there are many, many people equipped to change the world and make it a glorious place for everyone to live. But it also turns out that there are many, many people who just want to accumulate power and comfort at the expense of everyone else. It turns out that, no matter how much you have, you’re likely afraid that it won’t be enough.

The world was created out of abundance. God, who was sufficient and happy and fulfilled all alone in himself, made the world because he wanted to. There was so much joy, love, and happiness in the fellowship of the triune God, that it spilled over and created everything that is. From the very beginning, creation was designed in such a way that there would be no lack. How could there be, if the inception was overflow? Only when the world was broken, when we decided that we were better equipped to run God’s world than God, did scarcity enter the picture. It was only when we started to believe the lie that God was holding out on us that we started to believe that we had better hoard all that we can because there might not be enough.

When I was a young woman, I wanted to change the world and I thought that the best way to do that was to be the leader of my nation. As an aging woman, I don’t want to change the world anymore. I want to put it back together.

If I’m right, and I think that I am, then we don’t have to change anything at all. The world was made good, beautiful, and abundant. What we have to do is figure out all the ways that the lies about scarcity and God’s character have seeped into our collective understanding and undo their damage. We need to rewire our collective brain. If you’ve ever had to unlearn anything or try to untangle the webs of your family of origin, it’s like that, but on a cosmic scale. We don’t have to change the world, we have to start believing the truth about it and that means acknowledging who it really belongs to in the first place. Spoiler: not us.

When we believe the lie that God is holding out on us and that we can manage his creation better than he can, then we start to take control of things. We start to accumulate possessions and take all the credit for anything that we have or achieve. We are reluctant to admit that maybe we won that award or did that good work or made that glorious art because God made us to do those things. We want all the credit for ourselves.

Conversely, when we believe that the world was made in abundance out of the overflow of God’s goodness and love, then we don’t have to control anything. There’s nothing to worry about because there will always be enough. When we do something right, we praise God for making us in such a way that we could. When we make beautiful art, we praise God for our creative mind and bodies. When we have material possessions that meet our needs or bring us joy, we honor God by taking good care of those things and we aren’t stressed when we lose them because we know that there will always be enough.

This second world that I described isn’t a utopia. It isn’t idealized. It’s literally how the world was designed. The world’s already been changed, for the worse. We don’t need to change the world. We need to put it back together.

Y’all. I don’t want to change the world.

I want to change our minds. What would it look like to start living as if there was already enough? How would your life change if you acted like everything you had wasn’t really yours to begin with? How would your daily habits change and who would you bless? How would you start to put the world back together?

Because, I can’t change the world. For all my mental prowess, endurance strength, and planning skills, I cannot fix the problem of the collective lies that we believe. You cannot legislate hearts and desires. I’d never be able to make people believe that there is enough to go around. We have to come to that conclusion on our own, no one can make us.

So, how about, instead of trying to change the world, we shift our perspective? How about, instead of trying to change the world, we just focus on the problems in our neighborhood? How about, instead of trying to change the world, we let ourselves be changed?

Still sounds like a lot of work to me, but I think that if enough of us start doing it, we might have a shot.