Prove It

We hear lots of talk about a culture war and what role Christians should play in it. I am of the opinion that the big, obvious cultural enemies of Christianity are not nearly as threatening as the more subtle and, therefore, more pernicious enemies.

One of these enemies is what I call the “prove it” culture. It is really easy to explain and even easier to recognize in our day-to-day lives. It is that cultural phenomenon that has brainwashed us into thinking that we must be proving our worth at all times.

In business, one of the most rewarded skills is the skill of telling other people how skilled you are. It is not usually described like that, but may be instead referred to as the art of communicating one’s value. Either way, it creates a culture where proving one’s worth becomes of the utmost importance.

This mentality has also entered the home and by doing so transformed the place where one previously found unconditional love into a place where one must “earn their keep.”

Spouses must prove their worth to one another and we are encouraged to end relationships when the other has not provided sufficient proof of their love. The common question one poses is whether this relationship is “serving me” any longer. In other words, is this person worth it?

Children are increasingly “cutting out” their parents who they deem to be unworthy of their title as mother or father. The gift of life is not sufficient, the requirement is now perfection. How can any parent prove their worth against that standard?

And the most extreme case is how children must somehow prove their worth while still in the womb. Is this child worthy of us allowing it to live? Or should we “choose” to prematurely end its life?

It is mystifying that for all the talk we have of social justice, we pay such little attention to injustices done to the family and in the family. After all, the family is where one first develops their sense of both society and justice. 

And perhaps worst of all, it happens in faith communities as well. One seeks to prove how Holy they are by sharing how many Masses or Church events they’ve attended, or Rosaries they’ve prayed, or good deeds they have done. Unfortunately, there are some for whom the faith is not so much about relishing in God’s goodness as it is about trying to prove their own superiority.

And it is worst in these cases because it is faith that should be the antidote to this type of culture.

Besides just the moral problems with living in a constant “prove it” mode, it is also ironically impractical. The one who is constantly trying to prove their worth does great damage to their own dignity. 

But I do not want to be insensitive because I think many do not want to be stuck in the never-ending “prove it” cycle but do not know how to break free. They may even get stuck in the most subtle and insidious “prove it” trap: trying to prove to others that they have nothing to prove.

There is no philosophy, no self-help formula, or anything else that is capable of escaping this trap besides Christianity. Because in Christianity, our worth is not proven by our deeds; the proof is on the Cross.

By Christ removing our need to justify ourselves, we can be free to serve God and our neighbor. By no longer needing to prove anything we are not made less motivated for positive action, we are actually able to be more effective in doing so. So long as we are doing good things so that we can prove we are good, both the things we do and our soul will come out bad. But by doing good things simply because they are good we are acting with the dignity we were Created.

In business, we do grave damage to the company if we are working in order to prove our worth versus simply doing what is good for our employers and our coworkers and our customers. Despite what “prove it” culture might have to say, business, like the rest of life, is not about proving but serving.

In family life, we recognize the extent of Christ’s love for us on the Cross and we try to emulate this love to one another. This means that we recognize that love hurts, sometimes. This means that we recognize that love is not something given where sin is absent, but is made manifest amidst sin. In other words, it is because there will be wrongs done to one another in a family that one can experience such profound love here. 

Too often we get things backwards, especially in parent-child relationships. In a properly ordered family, children are thankful for their parents and parents are sorrowful for the ways they (inevitably) fell short of their duty. One of my favorite songs, “A Father’s Song” by Allen Stone, expresses this beautifully. 

Instead, we get children who are sorrowful over the ways their parents have fallen short of their duty and congratulate themselves for doing so much better than their parents. Seriously twisted!

But I think it gets twisted because our desire to constantly prove our worth incentivizes us to hold onto the wrongs of others and dismiss the wrongs we ourselves have done. When we come from a place of realizing that our worth has already been proven, we are free to admit our wrongs and quick to accept the love we did receive from others, rather than lamenting that it was not perfect love. In other words, we can not see love for what it is so long as we see ourselves as flawless.

And this is where the faith aspect comes into play. We can not see Christ, either, until we see Him as savior. And we can not see Him as savior until we see ourselves as needing salvation. 

The blind man, Bartimaeus, today is not trying to prove his worth to Christ. He is desperate for Christ’s salvation. He begs for it. Though he is blind, he sees much clearer than the rest of us.

Last week we saw James and John coming before the Lord asking for Him to raise them up and they were humbled. Today we see a man humbling himself before the Lord and he is exalted. We all want Christ’s glory, like James and John, but how many of us want His pity, like Bartimaeus? But it is precisely His pity that brings us into His glory.

The sooner we relinquish our desire to prove ourselves, we can see the great proof of Christ’s Love. And if we all saw this, our culture would radically change.