I may have mentioned that I do not subscribe to the idea that the ends justify the means.
That type of mentality reminds me of the kind of people I used to know who were very ambitious. Driven people who were clear that the goal was all and anything they could do to reach it was fair game. Those driven folks certainly achieved much as we measure achievements by reaching goals. The cost of reaching those goals with that kind of drive was usually the quality of relationships they cultivated. There wasn’t much in terms of depth to the relationships, and however much they had techniques and tactics, they couldn’t understand how others couldn’t be as goal-driven as they were and were not willing to do what it took.
Those people have their strengths for sure, and as someone who wasn’t driven for much in my younger days, I’m grateful for the boot they gave me in the necessary part of my anatomy to realise that life was not about chilling. Life is not about sailing, letting things happen to you, and then getting the next thing to deal with what’s coming. No. Jesus is not in the habit of saving us to allow us to drift along.
Jesus, however, was also not the sort of person who discarded relationships for the sake of a goal that didn’t take in relationships—indeed, giving glory to God by completing His will necessarily involved developing meaningful relationships that pointed people back to God. That didn’t prioritise people as though they were the holy centre of the plan, but it didn’t suggest either that people were disposable commodities useful for a purpose and then move on.
The ends do not justify the means. However, God's righteousness motivates us to go beyond what we thought were our limits. I did not know I could pull all-night support to complete a service for the Kingdom's sake until someone allowed me to walk along with them as we did just that. I had no idea I had it in me to pray to the point of tears with others for the sake of those we loved until someone allowed me to walk along with them as we did just that.
I would be the first person to drop out of anything that involved working with the homeless for fear of dealing with nasty, stinky people who might give me something I didn’t like. Then, the grace of God brought me to people who helped with the necessary slap upside my head to recognise that the mess these people’s lives were in was not helped by my conceited, obnoxious and outright ungodly attitude. Thank God for people who helped me to see that the love of Jesus reached people from all walks of life and recognise them as people worth caring for, loving and expressing the great redemptive God does in messes. Messes like the figure I see when I look in the mirror and remember one or two hundred episodes.
That’s to say, when the end is the glory of God, He establishes the right paths that enable that to be realised. And it doesn’t require us to treat people clinically and dispassionately as the means to the end. It does allow us to go along the journey along the paths of righteousness …
For His Name's Sake
C. L. J. Dryden
Shalom
