The Blog That Speaks: You’re Doing the Best You Can . . .
I hemmed and hawed. I did not know what to say.
Image by alex4663 from Pixabay
What was I to say when I was questioned about my friend’s well-being after his spouse died? I weighed my options:
- He’s fine.
That was not completely true.
- How do you think he’s doing after losing his beloved wife of over 50 years?!?!
While it may be what I wanted to say, it was perhaps a little too snarky.
After some thought, I responded with:
- He’s doing the best he can with the resources that he has.
This is a phrase with which I am quite familiar. After learning it some years ago from a trainer of Compassionate Communication (a.k.a., Nonviolent Communication), I have inserted it into my daily morning routine by saying it as I prepare for the day.
Pam, you are doing the best you can with the resources that you have.
It is my hope that somehow this daily message will wire together a collection of my brain’s neurons, which will contribute to my offering grace to myself and thereby to others.
While I believe I am benefiting from the aforementioned phrase, I have discovered that some Christians scorn it. A well-known Christian American author was discussing on a podcast some pointless phrases people say when individuals are suffering. I was surprised when the expression, “You’re doing the best you can,” made the list as one of those ineffective phrases. Dripping with sarcasm, this author stated, “But are we really? Are we really doing the best we can?” The implied answer was obvious: No, we are not.
In light of the philosophy of American can-doism, which is accompanied by a dash of meritocracy and a peppering of exceptionality (all of which permeate our culture), the author’s perception may have been predicted. We instruct school-age children that they can be anything they want to be. We then proceed to put forth examples of individuals who are the exception to the rule, such as Olympians, instrumentalists, orators, etc. Like the newly-crowned Miss America, we will inform children: “You can do all of it . . . and more.”[1]
Unfortunately, American can-doism frequently champions the extraordinary while ignoring the ordinary—the average. We may be blamed by others for not trying to “do all of it . . . and more” or when we are unable to accomplish our dream. We may hear words similar to those of Miss America: “You can achieve anything. The sky is not the limit and the only person that’s stopping you is you.”[2] This leaves very little room for life’s uncertainty and humanity’s limited power. Only minimal leeway is granted if ongoing trouble accompanies individuals while success eludes them. Too much trouble and too little success generates blame on the individuals for their failing to try harder. According to Alexander McFarlane and Bessel van der Kolk, many societies believe that persons are able to “control their own destinies.”[3] It is simply inconceivable (to quote Vizzini in The Princess Bride) for us to believe that someone cannot do anything or be anyone they desire to be. Perhaps part of the problem is that we resist placing limits on others (i.e., you can be anything you want to be) is because if we do, we must admit that we too are limited (finite) beings.
The added spice to our American can-doism is meritocracy, which is a pervasive aspect throughout our culture. We can do anything we want to do or be anyone we want to be if we work hard, climbing the ladder of success. If you practice that sport twelve hours a day, you too can earn a gold medal. If you embrace a grueling schedule, you can also become the most sought-after inspirational speaker or pianist or _____. In short, we earn it. You got it because you deserve it.
Our society is quite cognizant that our culture has adopted the rule that only the best (those who earn it) receive the prize. Consider the news headlines in the spring of 2019 in which over fifty wealthy people were charged in the college admissions scandal. Parents had shoveled out bribes worth tens of thousands of dollars to guarantee their child(ren) received an acceptance letter into one of America’s prestigious universities, such USC, Yale, Stanford, etc. The scandal and the public outcry serve as evidence that meritocracy is a recognized mandate in our society. The parents resorted to cheating to guarantee their child’s admission into an elite college, circumventing their children having to earn their own way, and Americans from Alaska to Florida cried “foul,” signaling how firmly we cling to the belief that meritocracy is fair.
This leads to a discussion on our culture’s embracing of exceptionality. Social media encourages the need to increase followers. Be an influencer. Have more likes. Practical theologian Andrew Root describes how American culture has shifted farther away from maintaining uniformity to endorsing uniqueness, which is also part of the church.[4] For example, if I was on vacation in another city years ago, I could attend a church in my denomination and find the same Sunday School curriculum being used and the same worship songs being sung. However, today’s churches are expected to avoid sameness by being uncommonly unique. Will Mancini in Church Unique proposes that a church is to ascertain what is “God’s unique thumbprint” for that church.[5] Once a church establishes how it is unique, its organizational structure, purpose, values, and vision should complement this uniqueness. Root explores how this perspective conveys that individual churches are the sole source for creativity and innovation. Certain death of an organization, a church, or an influencer is when it becomes conventional, not exceptional. And a metric, which measures exceptionality and gauges whether a person or organization is on life support, is embedded in social media. The more likes, the more unique and creative I am. The more followers, the more extraordinary I am. And my failure to accumulate likes or to increase the number of followers judges me as not being good enough . . . near death. It is up to me to be creative and innovative, and if I am not, I may not be doing the best I can. After all, if it is all up to me, I am to blame.
In light of our culture’s persistent message, I have benefited from the daily reminder of the phrase: You are doing the best you can with the resources that you have. It invites me to receive the multi-generational family system in which I was raised. I am a farmer’s daughter who spent hours on the farm without seeing anyone but my immediate family. For example, I went to school twenty miles from where I lived; thus, I was astonished when I realized that many of my classmates saw each other during the summer. This illustrates the level of my isolation. This isolation shaped me in how I interact (or not) with others.
The phrase, you are doing the best you can with the resources that you have, also releases me to accept my performance anxiety as I am not an extemporaneous preacher or teacher. It also explains my enjoyment of writing, allowing me the time to select words to creatively string them together. This is not to mean that I am unable to rise above the constraints of a family system. The fact that I have earned a PhD while neither of my parents graduated from high school is illustrative of this. My point is in whatever ways my family system signals my limits, boundaries if you will, the phrase, you are doing the best you can with the resources that you have, frees me to embrace the creature that I am. This does not mean that we are to cease in our attempts to be the best we can be, but rather it indicates that being exceptional is not the norm. I do not need to be the next Christian heroine, such as Aimee Semple McPherson, Amy Carmichael, Gladys Aylward, or Elizabeth Elliot, no matter what impression culture (church or otherwise) may give.
My daily reminder, which says I am doing the best I can with the resources I have, then, serves as a check toward heroic pursuits and beliefs that I am more powerful than what I am. I am learning that instead of life being about me and the need to fix myself, be creative, be innovative, or gain more followers, I am reminding myself that I am a character in a story that is larger than I.
As a Christian, I perceive myself as a minor character in God’s story rather than God being a character in my story.
If I place the human story on a timeline, it began with God creating the heavens and the earth, and it closes with God creating a new heaven and new earth. I, as a minor character, am a blip on that timeline. The story is bigger than my life so that I am a creature in the Creator’s story.
This understanding is played out beautifully in the story of Job. Like all cultures, Job’s culture had formed ideas about how life operates. Such cultural ideas grant humans a semblance of empowerment and create a façade of control. In Job’s culture, one persistent belief was: If you do good, you will be blessed, but if you do bad, you will be punished. At the beginning of Job’s story, Job is highlighted as a righteous man, who had wealth, health, and a family. He could have been the poster child for an axiom: If you do good like Job, you will be blessed like Job. However, little did he know, the accuser (called the satan) approached God with an accusation. The satan claimed that the reason Job honored God was because God protected Job, but if God no longer protected him, Job would curse God. God granted the satan permission to wreak havoc on Job’s life, first on his holdings and family and then on his own body.
Little did Job know . . .
This statement alone is a reminder that humans are not all knowing. Our knowledge is limited as we are finite. Life remains a mystery. It is unpredictable and contains uncertainty. Oh, we attempt to summarize life through succinct sayings, e.g., Proverbs, but life is regularly coloring outside those lines. But that does not stop us from trying. We have attempted to control life through short phrases, like the biblical book of Proverbs, for centuries. We have tried to find the key to unlock life’s mysteries and uncertainties through Proverbs. But Proverbs reveals our limited understanding. It summarizes life in short pithy sayings that may hold true on some level but not on all levels. If one doubts this, simply read Ecclesiastes, which reminds us that life is full of unpredictability, uncertainty, and mystery. Or read the Psalms, which contains the highs and lows that life brings—of the wicked prospering and the wicked being punished, of the righteous suffering and the righteous rejoicing. Apparently, it is not true all the time that if you do good, you will be blessed; if you do bad, you will be punished.
And so, my use of the phrase little did Job know captures the broad picture of Job. It demonstrates how our knowledge as humans is limited, and our understanding about how life functions is narrow. We are simply creatures, not all-knowing, not all-powerful beings. We are limited, weak beings who are simply doing the best we can with what little we have been given.
For me, the phrase we are simply doing the best we can with the resources we have is a phrase that beckons me to be the finite creature, not the Infinite Creator. It invites me to receive my limits. It calls to me to trust and depend on Christ more. It reminds me that it is not up to me. I am not responsible for the outcome as I am a participant in God’s ministry in the world. It informs me that I am a minor character in God’s big story of healing all of creation who is simply doing the best she can with the resources that she has.
[1] Isaac O’Dell, “Newly-crowned Miss America encourages students at Colorado Springs school: ‘You can do all of it . . . and more,’” The Gazette, January 25, 2024, updated February 29, 2024, https://gazette.com/news/education/newly-crowned-miss-america-encourages-students-at-colorado-springs-school-you-can-do-all-of/article_819b8bfc-bb09-11ee-a312-f330cd99c23a.html.
[2] GMA Team, “US Air Force Officer makes history as Miss America,” ABC News, January 15, 2024, https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/us-air-force-officer-makes-history-miss-america/story?id=106379088.
[3] Alexander McFarlane and Bessel van der Kolk, “Trauma and Its Challenge to Society,” Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, edited by Bessel A. van der Kolk et al., (New York: Guilford, 2007), ProQuest Ebook Central, 26.
[4] Andrew Root, The Church after Innovation: Questioning Our Obsession with Work, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022), Kindle.
[5] Will Mancini, Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), xxiii.
