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Being all that You Can Be

"Be all that you can be,...." Do you recall that commercial? Going over the airwaves across the country, it wrapped its recruitment message in very attractive packaging. Military service was an opportunity for fulfillment, challenge, and adventure! It was all there to be had.

The opportunity to "be all that you can be" is particularly compelling to recent generations, beginning with 'baby boomers' born from 1946 through 1964. As we grapple with our need to integrate worship with life, it's important for us to acknowledge some prominent attitudes of those who were born during the second half of the 20th century.

In recent decades, we all have been bludgeoned by the constant changes and continuous crises that have characterized our times. Wars have been breaking out like flowers in springtime. Soviet missiles came to Cuba and Khrushchev predicted that Communists would raise our children. High voltage racial tension exploded into riots across the continent and around the world. And we witnessed all of this instantly, vividly and repeatedly via television and other media. It's been quite a life and it isn't over yet.

These and other major events have profoundly undermined our sense of security and trust. Often, our response has been to pull away from institutions we used to trust: governmental processes, company loyalties, church denominations, and even family expectations. Many times, we've replaced them with a greater emphasis on setting our own course, relying on our own resources, being independent, doing it our way.

Our movement in this direction has been hastened by several significant factors. One factor is our education. We are the best-educated people in the history of North America. But education also brings a sense of independence.

Another is today's instant access to information. Satellites have given us unprecedented global awareness. Information is power, and the more we have, the less (we think) we need to depend on others.

Another is our standard of living. Born in North America, we have options and opportunities unheard-of in many other parts of the world.

Another factor is our entrepreneurial spirit. More companies have recently been formed than at any other time in our history. During the industrial 1950s, for example, about 93,000 businesses were started in America. In 1984 alone, 640,000 began. Such spirit fosters the concept of our 'being all that we can be' - on our own terms.

Abraham Maslow, who died in 1970, was a leading advocate of humanistic psychology. He developed a motivational theory to describe a person's progression from basic physiological needs such as food to the next rung up the ladder, our need for safety. After that, there's our need for love and belonging, then our need for esteem.

The top rung of his ladder is self-actualization, seen as one's highest need and goal.

When that highest level is reached, a person experiences the fulfillment of his or her greatest human potential.

The model, as far as it goes, is somewhat compelling. Unfortunately, it has at least two major flaws. First, it's only two-dimensional. It addresses only our outer self and our inner self; it ignores our eternal self. On second thought, what else would you expect from a humanistic orientation? It is "natural"—perhaps even necessary—for humanists to ignore the reality of eternity, since that would force them "naturally" to consider God.

It's not only limited to two dimensions, it is also unattainable. Can we be fully self-actualized on earth? No. Sin limits our actualization because it interferes with the way God designed us. Furthermore, in view of what the Scriptures tell us about our design, can we even come close to self-actualization when we center on ourselves instead of centering on God? No. Was Christ, our supreme Model for living, self-actualized on earth? No, according to Philippians 2:3-11.

In India, monkey-catchers understand this principle of "Be all that you can be" or "Get all that you can get." When they want to snag a monkey, they put a nut that they know monkeys like into a small box. Then they put the box out where the monkeys will notice it.

Sure enough, an inquisitive monkey comes over to the box, discovers the nut and reaches through the little opening to grasp it. The catcher then comes nearer the box. The monkey sees him, and tries to get away.

No problem, if the monkey lets go of the nut. It can slip its hand out of the opening and escape easily to freedom. But if the monkey continues to grasp the nut, freedom will only be a memory, because the opening in the box isn't big enough for the hand and the nut at once. Most monkeys, I read, hold onto their prize.

Can I suggest an alternative approach to Maslow's theory for you to consider? It emerges from the Scriptures and looks to God for meeting our needs:

(1) Physiological needs.

You cannot serve God and mammon. "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? . For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. (Matthew 6:24-33).

(2) Safety needs.

Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place,. He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. (Psalm 91:9-11).

(3) Love and belonging needs.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39).

(4) Esteem needs.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).

(5) Self-actualization needs.

"He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39).

This being the case, we come back to Colossians 3:1-2, "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

The result, in terms of our own lives, is that we, by thinking and functioning as God designed us, will then reach out with God's love to those governmental processes, those companies, those denominations and churches, those families that we used to avoid.