Created in Joy! Created for Joy!
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 12:34PM I am an avid reader. I tend to devour everything that peaks my interest - just at the moment I am reading Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs. It has been of the most engaging, and saddening, books I have read in a long time.
Steve Jobs seems to have been a person who had a few very 'rough edges'. Whilst I can certainly see elements of enlightenment in his character and desire, there are some very aspects of his person (most frequently expressed in his fears and his behaviour) that show that in spite of enlightenment he was a rather tormented and unhappy person.
I suppose that in some senses success comes at a cost - in this case the cost is real closeness to other people. While there is little doubt that many people admired (and still admire) Steve Jobs for his vision and drive, there is also little doubt that there are many who have been left in the wake of an unrelenting and even destructive personality.
In contrast to what I am reading in the Isaacson biography I came across this beautiful quote from Frederick Buechner, the American born writer and theologian:
God created us in joy and created us for joy, and in the long run not all the darkness there is in the world and in ourselves can separate us finally from that joy, because whatever else it means to say that God created us in his image, I think it means that even when we cannot believe in him, even when we feel most spiritually bankrupt and deserted by him, his mark is deep within us. We have God’s joy in our blood. Frederick Buechner.
Indeed, I can see aspects of 'driveness' in my own life. Those who know me will testify to the fact that I am quite a driven person. Once I have a particular goal in mind, or an aspiration toward which I am striving, it tends to occupy my mind and direct both my actions and my thoughts.
For example, I had been working on my doctoral research for about two and a half years when one day a catastrophe occurred - in an attempt to keep up to date copies of my working file (the actual text of my dissertation) I accidentally copied an old version of my work over the latest versions. Of the 4 completed chapters (out of 6) in my doctoral thesis I lost 3. Basically all I had left was my research proposal, which would later become the first chapter of my thesis.
As you can imagine I was devistated! After much anger, dissapointment, disbelief and more anger, I made a choice: I said to myself that I would give this project one last effort. I decided to wake up each morning and work from 4am to 6.30am every day of the week (7 days) until I could not do it anymore.
I kept to that discipline and ended up completing my dissertation in just over a year. I was consumed by the desire to complete it.
However, I have been working very hard in recent years to be transformed from being driven to being called. It is a subtle, but significant distinction. Driven people do things for themselves. Called persons respond to an invitation from another. I am attempting to live far more as a person of calling, on who is dedicating his life to a vocation rather than a career.
This reminds me a great deal of this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer (whose biography 'Bonhoeffer, Pastor Martyr, Prophet, Spy', I read last month):
Vocation is responsibility and responsibility is a total response of the whole man to the whole of reality. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
As I have taken this delicate and often painful journey of living in spite of my weaknesses and brokenness I have discovered a great deal of blessing and joy. I am beginning to become much more accepting of the truth that I was created in joy, and created by God for joy!
