My eighth-grade math teacher had a policy that any student who had a one hundred average in her class did not have to show our work on our homework or on quizzes. But regardless of our grade, she required that we show all our work on tests and exams. I worked my tail off to maintain that perfect average in her class, purely so I could get away with not needing to write out how I arrived at answers to those math problems. As I look back on it, my teacher’s strategy either promoted the utmost in dedication to our math ability, or it was a prelude to extreme laziness. My excellent average convinced me of my own brilliance in all things mathematical as I sought to be perfect.
“Not many of you were wise… but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” Whenever I read these words, I am forced to remember that no matter how high my academic achievements might have been at various points in my schooling (and there were also some severely low points, too), I cannot even begin to comprehend the enormity of the good work that God has done through Christ Jesus, which is really the point I am trying to make here. When we believe that our salvation is something we have earned, we distance ourselves from the Lord. When we start to think we have a better understanding of the plans for our lives than our Creator does, we begin to fall away from Him.
No matter how smart I thought I was in eighth grade, I was not perfect in algebra. No matter how much I might try to live a life growing closer to God, whenever I seek to do it on my own, I fail. At the end of this passage, Paul references the words of the Prophet Jeremiah: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
Each day, I have to remind myself that I cannot accomplish my own salvation. Each day, I need the reminder that the only boast I can make is in God. And each day, the Lord pushes me towards a life that is not perfect as I understand it, but a life that seeks to be ever more dependent upon Him.