The Christian mold: it beckons us, whispers to us constantly
about what a “good” Christian might choose or what a “good” Christian might
say. Each in our own minds, we carry always before us a real-life person that
we admire, or a contrived goal of what we think we ought to be, or an amalgam of
all we see and hear from others about living the Christian life. Tellingly, the
mold in our minds centers around behaviors and external practices, not
typically around the righteousness of heart seen only by God. We want to be
careful with our projected image, and it’s a heavy weight to carry.
However, instead of throwing off the pressurized weight of the
mold, we often try instead to squeeze ourselves into it. We evaluate ourselves
by the imagined mold, puffing up with pride when we fit just so and throwing
ourselves into the pit of self-condemnation when we don’t. Not only does it
simultaneously feed our pride and self-condemnation, but it accommodates our
harsh critique of others who don’t fit the mold we carry around in our minds.
We become judges, arbiters of the Christian life, and it is a heavy weight to
carry.
Others among us reject any mold, any submission to a greater
God-given whole, and scream out constantly about our individualism. We say in
so many words to anyone who will listen, “I don’t fit the mold, and I don’t
feel like that’s welcomed. Validate me.” Our difference and individualism
become our highest virtue and get first priority over our corporateness in Christ. This response to the mold is an accepted invitation to
self-pity, anger, bitterness, and eventually isolation, and it is a heavy
weight to carry.
Although it is a heavy weight, it feels equally difficult and
even unnatural to reject the beckoning of the mold, precisely because a
rejection of the mold is a rejection of self. To give up the fight to fit into
the mold or the fight to validate our individual mold is to give up pleasing
man and pleasing our pride and submitting solely and completely to God. We must
be willing to do anything that He calls us to, whether it means we fit the mold
or stand out from it. We must be willing to put primary focus on the values of
the kingdom of God--faith, hope, and love--rather than external practices that
we use to make us look good to others.