THE TWELVE MEN WHO FOLLOWED JESUS CHRIST AND later launched the church that bears His name were a curious and unpredictable group. There is not one of them (with the possible exception of Judas Iscariot, who, it has to be admitted, appeared to have a mind for practicality) I would have picked to lead a movement like the one Jesus clearly had in mind. No, I would not have picked any of them. But Jesus did, and His choices, Judas excluded, are unimpeachable.
Now there were, in fact, others who showed signs of enthusiasm in their desire to join Jesus' movement. Being a bit assertive myself - a proactive type, as they say - I am fascinated by these volunteers and would have been inclined to include them. But Jesus wasn't, and He discouraged them. I wish I knew why. His responses to their initiatives seem harsh at first light (Luke 9:57ff) and suggest that Jesus rebuffed them because He had reservations about them that the gospel writers do not fully reveal.
Is it possible that Jesus, with His extraordinary intuition, looked into their private worlds and saw danger signs? Let me make an attempt at reading Jesus' mind and propose that He sensed what one might call drivenness, a quality seen in people motivated to make something of themselves for less-than-best reasons. Maybe the clue is in the fact that you see them wanting to place conditions on their discipleship by stipulating when they would engage with Jesus and what they might want out of the relationship. Just speculations, to be sure, but worth thinking about.
Perhaps (I'm brainstorming here) if they had come aboard we would have discovered that they had a lot more in their personal agendas than was apparent at first. We would have found that they were men with their own plans and schemes, goals, and objectives. And Jesus Christ would not do mighty works in the private worlds of people who were so driven. He never did then, and He won't now.
In contrast to those who are driven are the called. There's a bit of vagueness in this, but it would appear that there were certain people who began to hang out with Jesus. They listened intently when He spoke; watched carefully when He acted; responded seriously when He asked questions. And then, perhaps when it was least expected, He called or invited them into His tight microcommunity of followers. To this group He gave enormous amounts of time and attention. And they were transformed.
In an exploration of the inner sphere of the person, one has to begin somewhere, so I have chosen to begin where Christ appears to have begun - this distinction between the called and the driven.
Let's take a hard look at drivenness. It's worth some thought because too many of us find ourselves falling into this category. And we're not real happy about it.
How can you spot a driven person? Today it is relatively easy. Start with the signs of stress, and you have probably found some driven men and women. Not always, of course. But it's worth beginning here. In recent years it has become very clear that many people in our society are under constant and destructive stress as life for them operates at a pace that offers little time for any restorative rest and retreat. The costs related to stress are astronomical in the health-care industry as we discover its links to heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidental injuries, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide.
I belong to the generation that saw stress become the serious malady it is today. People worked hard in the days of my childhood, very hard. But they generally knew when to stop working, when to sit on the porch and listen to the ball game, when to take a walk and visit friends, when to get a decent night's sleep. Sure, people got tired. But they didn't constantly complain of the exhaustion we hear about today.
Has it occurred to you how often we talk about our fatigue? I sometimes have the feeling that if I don't tell my friends how tired I am they will doubt I am doing anything worthwhile. Try telling someone that you feel great, that you are at the top of your game, that you've never been better. The chances are that they will suspect that you're putting them on ... that you lack sincerity.
How did we get to a day when stress and fatigue are almost a badge of success?
We are all aware that there is a kind of stress that is beneficial because it brings out the best in performers, athletes, or executives. But most of the attention presently being given to the subject centres on the kinds of stress that diminish rather than enhance human capacity.
One fascinating study on stress was conducted by the late Dr. Thomas Holmes. Holmes was known for his development of the famous Social Readjustment Rating Scale, or as most of us know it, the Holmes Stress Chart. Holmes's stress chart is a simple measurement device that indicates how much pressure a person is probably facing and how close he may be to dangerous physical and psychic consequences.
After considerable research, various events common to all of us were assigned point totals by Holmes and his associates. Each point was called a "life-change unit." An accumulation of more than 200 of these units in any one year, Holmes suggested, could be the warning of a potential heart attack, emotional stress, or breakdown of the ability to function as a healthy person. The death of a spouse, for example, commands the highest number of life-change units, 100. Being fired from a job produces 47 points, while the acquisition of a new family member provides 39. Not all stress-producing events listed by Holmes are negative. Even positive and happy events such as Christmas (12 points) and vacations (13) create stress.
My experience is that it is not unusual to talk with people whose point totals well beyond 200. A pastor, for example, comes to visit with me at my office. His point total, he tells me, is 324. His blood pressure is dangerously high; he suffers from constant stomach pains, he fears an ulcer, and he does not sleep well at night. On another day, I sit at breakfast with a young executive who admits that until recently his ambition had been to accumulate a minimum of a million dollars before the age of thirty. When he matches his present situation up against the Holmes Stress Chart, he is horrified to discover that his point total is 412. What do these two men from the business and religious world have in common?
These are what I call driven men. And their drive is costing them terribly - the point totals are simply a numerical indication of that fact. I use the word driven because it describes not only the condition in which they are pursuing life, but also because it is descriptive of the way many of the rest of us are not facing up to the reality of what we are doing to ourselves. Perhaps we are being driven toward goals and objectives without always understanding why. Or we may not be aware of the real cost to our minds, our bodies, and, of course, our hearts. By heart I mean the one written about in Proverbs 4:23, that fountainhead from which comes the energy of life.
There are lots of driven people doing very good things. Driven people are not necessarily bad folk, although the consequences of their drivenness may produce unfortunate results. In fact, driven people often make great contributions. They start organizations; they provide jobs and opportunities; they are often very bright and offer ways and means of doing things that benefit many other people. Nevertheless they are driven, and one worries about their ability to sustain the pace without danger to themselves.
In another book of mine, I related a story from the writings of Mrs. Charles Cowman, whose spiritual reflections were quite popular fifty or more years ago. A nineteenth-century explorer, she wrote, had hired a group of African villagers to provide support for his exploration of a portion of unmapped Africa. On the first three days of their trek, they achieved an unexpected rate of speed, which put them substantially ahead of schedule. The scientist was elated.
But all that changed on the fourth day when he arose from his tent and discovered that no one was moving. In fact he was told that the African support team intended to sit the day out. When he asked why, he was told that they had decided they'd been moving much too fast and that it was time to stop and let their souls catch up with their bodies.
There's a message in the ageing story. It suggests - in a fascinating way - that it is possible for the public and the private world of a person to split. And the greater the split, the higher the stress. The Africans were wise to this; the explorer hadn't a clue.
Can driven people be spotted? Yes, of course. There are many symptoms that suggest a person is driven. Among the ones I see most often are these:
1. A driven person is most often gratified only by accomplishment. Somewhere in the process of maturation this person discovers that the only way he can feel good about himself and his world is to accumulate accomplishments. This discovery may be the result of formative influences at an early age; as a child, affirmation and approval may have been received from a parent or influential mentor only when something had been finished. Nothing of value may have ever been said until that task was completed. Thus the only way he could find love and acceptance was through accomplishment.
I was standing at the entrance of the arena where my granddaughter plays indoor soccer. A small boy, no older than nine, came out the door and spied his father. "I scored a goal, Dad," he said with excitement. "Yeah," his father replied, "but you missed the chance for two others."
This exchange, which happened just a day or two ago, caused me to wonder if I wasn't watching a boy who was being shaped by his father to define life and human value only in terms of accomplishment. You got one, but you could have done more. In such ways a lasting message is implanted in the boy's soul, and it is done by an important authority figure.
A psychology of achievement sometimes captures the heart in circumstances like that. A person begins to reason that if one accomplishment resulted in good feelings and the praise of others, then several more accomplishments may bring an abundance of good feelings and affirmations. Or if one accomplishment (in this case a goal) is not good enough, then perhaps three more will gain what I need most: approval.
So the driven person begins to look for ways to accumulate more and more achievements. He will soon be found doing two or three things at one time, because that brings even more of this strange sort of pleasure. He becomes the sort of person who is always reading books and attending seminars that promise to help him use what time he has even more effectively. Why? So that he can produce more accomplishments, which in turn will provide greater gratification.
This is the kind of person who sees life only in terms of results. As such, he has little appreciation for the process leading toward results. This kind of person would love to fly from New York to Los Angeles at supersonic speed, because to travel at ground speed and see the hills of Pennsylvania, the golden wheat of Iowa and Nebraska, the awesomeness of the Rockies, and the deserts of Utah and Nevada would be a terrible waste of time. Upon arrival in Los Angeles after a swift two-hour trip, this driven person would be highly irritated if the plane took four extra minutes to get into the gate. Arrival is everything to this accomplishment-oriented individual; the trip means nothing.
2. A driven person is preoccupied with the symbols of accomplishment. He is usually conscious of the concept of power, and he seeks to possess it in order to wield it. That means that he will be aware of the symbols of status: titles, office size and location, positions on organizational charts, and special privileges.
There is generally a concern for one's own notoriety when in a state of drivenness. Who, the driven person wonders, knows about what I am doing? How can I be better connected with the "greats" of my world? These questions often preoccupy the driven person.
3. A driven person is usually caught in the uncontrolled pursuit of expansion. Driven people like to be a part of something that is getting bigger and more successful. They are usually on the move, seeking the biggest and the best opportunities. They rarely have any time to appreciate the achievements to date.
The nineteenth-century English preacher Charles Spurgeon once said:
Here in North America we now live in what I call the era of the visionary church. Almost every pastor is judged on the basis of whether he/she has a vision. And this usually means a vision of how the church can grow, grow, grow. The pastoral care of the people - which for hundreds of years has been the aim of a church - is less important in comparison to the gathering of more people. Because more people means more programs, more buildings, more employed staff. Doubtless this is not all bad if it results in bringing unchurched people into the kingdom of God. But one wants to watch a lot of this "vision" and ask how much of it is satisfying the need of a driven leader who has to see things expand at all costs.
My speculation will probably irritate some. But even if I appear to have exaggerated my point, it will not hurt to take a second look at what we assume to be blessing if we discover it was fuelled by drivenness and not by calledness.
4. Driven people tend to have a limited regard for integrity. They can become so preoccupied with success and achievement that they have little time to stop and ask if their inner person is keeping pace with the outer process. Usually it is not, and there is an increasing gap, a breakdown in integrity. People like this often become progressively deceitful; and they not only deceive others, but they also deceive themselves. In the attempt to push ahead relentlessly, they lie to themselves about motives; values and morals are compromised. Shortcuts to success become a way of life. Because the goal is so important, they drift into ethical shabbiness. Driven people become frighteningly pragmatic.
5. Driven people are not likely to bother themselves with the honing of people skills. They are not noted for creating environments in which it is a pleasure for others to work. The truth is that programs, projects, and tasks are more important to them than people. Because their eyes are upon goals and objectives, they are rarely sensitive to the people about them, except as they can be used for the fulfilment of one of the goals. And if others are not found to be useful, then they may be seen as obstacles or competitors when it comes to getting something done.
There is usually a "trail of bodies" in the wake of the driven person. Where once others praised him for his seemingly great leadership, there soon appears a steady increase in frustration and hostility, as they see that the driven person cares very little about the health and growth of human beings. It becomes apparent that there is a non-negotiable agenda, and it is supreme above all other things. Colleagues and subordinates in the orbit of the driven person slowly drop away, one after another, exhausted, exploited, and disillusioned. Of this person we are most likely to find ourselves saying, "He is miserable to work with, but he certainly gets things done."
And therein lies the rub. He gets things done, but he may destroy people in the process. Not an attractive sight. Yet the ironic thing, which cannot be ignored, is that in almost every great organization, religious and secular, people of this sort can be found in key positions. Even though they carry with them the seeds of relational disaster, they often are indispensable to the action.
One day, many years ago, I was in the lobby of our church having a conversation with one of our staff members. A woman, Marilyn, came through the front entrance. Marilyn struggled with mental difficulties and was always highly medicated. In her somewhat dazed state she often seemed a drain on people because she talked slowly and raised topics unimportant to busy people ... like me (I am ashamed to say).
Seeing Marilyn, I called across the lobby, "Hello, Marilyn. How are you?" and then quickly turned back to my conversation with the staff member in the hope that she would realize I was busy and not intrude.
But that was not to be. Suddenly I was aware that Marilyn was approaching, in fact inserting herself between me and my conversation partner. Looking up at me - she was a very short woman - she said in her slow, medicated, and flat tone of voice, "Pastor Mac, you say, 'Hello, Marilyn. How are you?' but you really do not want to know. You are too busy to pay attention to someone like me. I'm just not important enough."
And Marilyn was right! Perhaps a score of other people felt the same way but didn't have the courage to say it in the same way. Marilyn's medications suspended those social "graces" that keep us from saying what we are thinking and caused her to say the exact truth. I could only apologize to her and ponder the evidence that I suffered from drivenness to a considerable extent.
6. Driven people tend to be highly competitive. They see each effort as a win-or-lose situation. And, of course, the driven person feels he must win, must look good before others. The more driven he is, the larger the score by which he needs to win. Winning provides the evidence the driven person desperately needs that he is right, valuable, and important. Thus, he is likely to see others as competitors or as enemies who must be beaten - perhaps even humiliated - in the process.
A man comes to mind with whom I played board games from time to time when I was a boy. It was not only important to him that he win but that he win big, as they say. If we played Monopoly, he would bankrupt me and then (stretching the rules) loan me money to keep on playing so that I could lose a second time. If we were playing Scrabble, he would run up the score with his far superior vocabulary and keep me struggling in the game even though I had lost heart and interest a long time ago. To this day, board games are something I will do anything to avoid (much to my wife's chagrin). The echoes of the repeated humiliations years ago remain with me. Driven people do this to others. And shouldn't!
7. A driven person often possesses a volcanic force of anger,which can erupt anytime he senses opposition or disloyalty. This anger can be triggered when people disagree, offer an alternative solution to a problem, or even hint at just a bit of criticism. The anger may not surface as physical violence. But it can take the form of verbal brutality: profanity or humiliating insults, for example.
The anger can express itself in vindictive acts such as firing people, slandering them before peers, or simply denying them things they have come to expect, such as affection, money, or even companionship.
Frankly; I would not have believed the story had it not been told by a person I trust. Picture an open office of a small business with several working associates. The office manager, a woman who has worked in the office for fifteen years, has made a request to the business-owner for a week off to be with a sick baby. When he refuses, she responds tearfully, asking him to reconsider. Big mistake! When he sees her tears, he snarls, "Clean out your desk and get out of here; I don't need you anyhow." When she is gone he turns to the horrified onlookers and says, "Let's get one thing straight; you're all here for only one reason: to make money for this business. And if you don't like that, get out right now!"
Tragically, many good people who surround the driven person are more than willing to absorb the impact of such anger although it desperately hurts them, because they reason that the boss or the leader is good at what he or she does. Sometimes the anger and its cruel effects are accepted simply because no one has either the courage or the ability to stand up to the driven person.
Recently a person who serves on the board of a major Christian organization told me of encounters with the executive director that included outbursts of rage studded with extraordinary profanity and demeaning language. When I asked why board members accepted this form of behaviour, which was neither rare nor open to excuse, he said, "I guess we were so impressed with the way God seemed to use him in his public ministry that we were reluctant to confront him." Is there anything else worth saying about the driven person, who by now appears to be entirely unlikeable? Yes, simply this:
8. Driven people are usually abnormally busy, are averse to play, and usually avoid spiritual worship. They are usually too busy for the pursuit of ordinary relationships in marriage, family, or friendship, or even to carry on a relationship with themselves - not to speak of one with God. Because driven people rarely think they have accomplished enough, they seize every available minute to attend more meetings, to study more material, to initiate more projects. They operate on the precept that a reputation for busyness is a sign of success and personal importance. Thus they attempt to impress people with the fullness of their schedules. They may even express a high level of self-pity, bemoaning the "trap" of responsibility they claim to be in, wishing aloud that there was some possible release from all that they have to live with. But just try to suggest a way out!
The truth is that the very worst thing that could happen to them would be if someone provided them with a way out. They really wouldn't know what to do with themselves if there were suddenly less to do. Busyness for the driven person becomes a habit, a way of life and thought. They find it enjoyable to complain and gather pity, and they would probably not want it any different. But tell a driven person that, and you'll make him angry.
This then is the driven person - not an entirely attractive picture. What often disturbs me as I look at this picture is the fact that much of our world is run by driven people. We have created a system that rides on their backs. And where that is true in businesses, in churches, and in homes, the growth of people is often sacrificed for accomplishment and accumulation.
Pastors who are driven men or women have been known to burn out scores of assistants and lay leaders because of their need to head organizations that are the biggest, the best, and the most well known. There are businesspeople who claim Christian faith and who have enjoyed a reputation for graciousness in the church, but who are ruthless in the office, pushing people and squeezing them for the last ounce of energy simply so they themselves can enjoy the gratification of winning, accumulating, or establishing a reputation.
Among the more painful self-revelations of my life was that I am basically a driven person. I have, at one time or another, seen in myself almost all of the traits I have listed. That drivenness has created moments of crisis for me down through the years. And each time I had to come to grips with fresh new revelations of an insidious energy within me that wanted to achieve and accomplish things for reasons that were far from obedience to Jesus or the glory of God.
What I had to learn was that my drivenness needed to be consecrated on a daily basis. I had to listen to my wife and to those closest to me to see if they saw any of the signs of uncontrolled drivenness. I had to engage in regular self-examination to assure that the plans I was making, the leadership I was giving, the goals I was setting were more in alignment with calledness than drivenness. I had to learn how to listen to God and assure that I was moving according to His agenda and not my self-serving one. To ignore the possibility that my life could be taken over by the spirit of drivenness would be to my peril.
Some time ago a businessman became a Christian through the witness of a layman who is a good friend of mine. Not long after making his choice to follow Jesus Christ, he wrote a long letter to my friend who had guided him into faith. In it he described some of his struggles as the result of his driven condition. I requested permission to share part of the letter because it so vividly illustrated the driven person. He wrote:
In the Bible few men typify the driven man better than Saul, the first king of Israel. Unlike the previous story, which had a happy conclusion, this one has a miserable ending, for Saul never got out of his golden cage. All he did was heap increasing amounts of stress upon himself. And it destroyed him.
The Bible's introduction to Saul should be warning enough that the man had some flaws that, if not addressed within his inner world, would cause him quickly to lose personal control.
The three characteristics? First, wealth; second, an attractive appearance; and third, a physically large and well-developed body. All were attributes of a person's public world. In other words, the initial impression was that Saul was a better man than anyone around him. All three external marks commanded attention and gained him quick advantages. (Each time I think of Saul's natural gifts, I recall the bank president some years ago who said to me, "MacDonald, you could go a long way in the business world if you were about six inches taller.") And, most importantly, they provided him with a sort of charisma that made possible his achieving some early success without ever having to develop a heart of wisdom or spiritual stature. He was simply a fast starter.
As Saul's story unfolds in the biblical text, we learn some other things about the man, things that could have either contributed to his success or become a part of his ultimate failure. We are told, for example, that he was good with words. When he was given a chance to speak before crowds, he was eloquent. The stage was set for a man to consolidate power and command recognition without ever having to develop any sense of a strong inner world first. And that was where the danger lay.
When Saul became king of Israel, he enjoyed too much immediate success. It apparently made him unaware that he had any limits to his life. He spent little time pondering his need for others, engendering a relationship with God, or even facing his responsibilities toward the people over whom he ruled. The signs of a driven man began to appear.
Saul became a busy man; he saw worlds he thought needed conquering. Thus, when he faced an impending battle with the Philistines, Israel's great enemy of the day, and waited at Gilgal for Samuel the prophet to come and offer the necessary sacrifices, he grew impatient and irritable when the holy man did not arrive on time. Saul felt that his timetable was being compromised; he had to get on with things. His remedy? Offer the sacrifice himself. And that is exactly what he did.
The result? A rather serious breach of covenant with God. Offering sacrifice was the kind of thing prophets like Samuel did, not kings like Saul. But Saul had forgotten that because he saw himself as being too important.
From that time forward Saul found himself on a downhill track. "Now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart" (1 Sam. 13:14). This is how most driven men end.
Stripped of what blessing and assistance he had had from God up to this point, Saul's drivenness began to reveal itself even further. Soon all of his energies became consumed in holding on to his throne, competing with young David, who had caught the imagination of the people of Israel.
The Scriptures give several examples of Saul's explosive anger, which drove him to outrage as well as to moments of paralyzing self-pity. By the end of his life, he was a man out of control, seeing enemies behind every bush. Why? Because from the very beginning Saul had been a driven man, and he had never cultivated the order of his private world.
I wonder what Saul's point total would have been on Thomas Holmes's stress chart. I suspect it would have been up in the range of stroke and heart attack victims. But Saul never came to grips with his drivenness, either through something like a stress chart or by simply facing the inner rebukes God would have liked for him to have heard within his private world. Saul would not have lasted long among the twelve disciples Jesus picked. His own compulsions were far too strong. That which had driven him to grasp power and not let go, that which had caused him to turn on his closest supporters, and that which caused him to make a successive series of unwise decisions, finally led him to a humiliating death. He was the classic driven man.
To the extent that we see him in ourselves, we have work to do in our private worlds. For an inner life fraught with unresolved drives will not be able to hear clearly the voice of Christ when He calls. The noise and pain of stress will be too great.
Unfortunately, our society abounds with Sauls, men and women caught in golden cages, driven to accumulate, to be recognized, or to achieve. Our churches, unfortunately, abound with these driven people as well. Many churches are fountains gone dry. Rather than being springs of life-giving energy that cause people to grow and to delight in God's way, they become sources of stress. The driven man's private world is disordered. His cage may be lavishly golden. But it's a trap; inside there is nothing that lasts.
Extracted from Gordon Macdonald's Ordering Your Private World.
Now there were, in fact, others who showed signs of enthusiasm in their desire to join Jesus' movement. Being a bit assertive myself - a proactive type, as they say - I am fascinated by these volunteers and would have been inclined to include them. But Jesus wasn't, and He discouraged them. I wish I knew why. His responses to their initiatives seem harsh at first light (Luke 9:57ff) and suggest that Jesus rebuffed them because He had reservations about them that the gospel writers do not fully reveal.
Is it possible that Jesus, with His extraordinary intuition, looked into their private worlds and saw danger signs? Let me make an attempt at reading Jesus' mind and propose that He sensed what one might call drivenness, a quality seen in people motivated to make something of themselves for less-than-best reasons. Maybe the clue is in the fact that you see them wanting to place conditions on their discipleship by stipulating when they would engage with Jesus and what they might want out of the relationship. Just speculations, to be sure, but worth thinking about.
Perhaps (I'm brainstorming here) if they had come aboard we would have discovered that they had a lot more in their personal agendas than was apparent at first. We would have found that they were men with their own plans and schemes, goals, and objectives. And Jesus Christ would not do mighty works in the private worlds of people who were so driven. He never did then, and He won't now.
In contrast to those who are driven are the called. There's a bit of vagueness in this, but it would appear that there were certain people who began to hang out with Jesus. They listened intently when He spoke; watched carefully when He acted; responded seriously when He asked questions. And then, perhaps when it was least expected, He called or invited them into His tight microcommunity of followers. To this group He gave enormous amounts of time and attention. And they were transformed.
In an exploration of the inner sphere of the person, one has to begin somewhere, so I have chosen to begin where Christ appears to have begun - this distinction between the called and the driven.
Let's take a hard look at drivenness. It's worth some thought because too many of us find ourselves falling into this category. And we're not real happy about it.
How can you spot a driven person? Today it is relatively easy. Start with the signs of stress, and you have probably found some driven men and women. Not always, of course. But it's worth beginning here. In recent years it has become very clear that many people in our society are under constant and destructive stress as life for them operates at a pace that offers little time for any restorative rest and retreat. The costs related to stress are astronomical in the health-care industry as we discover its links to heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidental injuries, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide.
I belong to the generation that saw stress become the serious malady it is today. People worked hard in the days of my childhood, very hard. But they generally knew when to stop working, when to sit on the porch and listen to the ball game, when to take a walk and visit friends, when to get a decent night's sleep. Sure, people got tired. But they didn't constantly complain of the exhaustion we hear about today.
Has it occurred to you how often we talk about our fatigue? I sometimes have the feeling that if I don't tell my friends how tired I am they will doubt I am doing anything worthwhile. Try telling someone that you feel great, that you are at the top of your game, that you've never been better. The chances are that they will suspect that you're putting them on ... that you lack sincerity.
How did we get to a day when stress and fatigue are almost a badge of success?
We are all aware that there is a kind of stress that is beneficial because it brings out the best in performers, athletes, or executives. But most of the attention presently being given to the subject centres on the kinds of stress that diminish rather than enhance human capacity.
One fascinating study on stress was conducted by the late Dr. Thomas Holmes. Holmes was known for his development of the famous Social Readjustment Rating Scale, or as most of us know it, the Holmes Stress Chart. Holmes's stress chart is a simple measurement device that indicates how much pressure a person is probably facing and how close he may be to dangerous physical and psychic consequences.
After considerable research, various events common to all of us were assigned point totals by Holmes and his associates. Each point was called a "life-change unit." An accumulation of more than 200 of these units in any one year, Holmes suggested, could be the warning of a potential heart attack, emotional stress, or breakdown of the ability to function as a healthy person. The death of a spouse, for example, commands the highest number of life-change units, 100. Being fired from a job produces 47 points, while the acquisition of a new family member provides 39. Not all stress-producing events listed by Holmes are negative. Even positive and happy events such as Christmas (12 points) and vacations (13) create stress.
My experience is that it is not unusual to talk with people whose point totals well beyond 200. A pastor, for example, comes to visit with me at my office. His point total, he tells me, is 324. His blood pressure is dangerously high; he suffers from constant stomach pains, he fears an ulcer, and he does not sleep well at night. On another day, I sit at breakfast with a young executive who admits that until recently his ambition had been to accumulate a minimum of a million dollars before the age of thirty. When he matches his present situation up against the Holmes Stress Chart, he is horrified to discover that his point total is 412. What do these two men from the business and religious world have in common?
These are what I call driven men. And their drive is costing them terribly - the point totals are simply a numerical indication of that fact. I use the word driven because it describes not only the condition in which they are pursuing life, but also because it is descriptive of the way many of the rest of us are not facing up to the reality of what we are doing to ourselves. Perhaps we are being driven toward goals and objectives without always understanding why. Or we may not be aware of the real cost to our minds, our bodies, and, of course, our hearts. By heart I mean the one written about in Proverbs 4:23, that fountainhead from which comes the energy of life.
There are lots of driven people doing very good things. Driven people are not necessarily bad folk, although the consequences of their drivenness may produce unfortunate results. In fact, driven people often make great contributions. They start organizations; they provide jobs and opportunities; they are often very bright and offer ways and means of doing things that benefit many other people. Nevertheless they are driven, and one worries about their ability to sustain the pace without danger to themselves.
In another book of mine, I related a story from the writings of Mrs. Charles Cowman, whose spiritual reflections were quite popular fifty or more years ago. A nineteenth-century explorer, she wrote, had hired a group of African villagers to provide support for his exploration of a portion of unmapped Africa. On the first three days of their trek, they achieved an unexpected rate of speed, which put them substantially ahead of schedule. The scientist was elated.
But all that changed on the fourth day when he arose from his tent and discovered that no one was moving. In fact he was told that the African support team intended to sit the day out. When he asked why, he was told that they had decided they'd been moving much too fast and that it was time to stop and let their souls catch up with their bodies.
There's a message in the ageing story. It suggests - in a fascinating way - that it is possible for the public and the private world of a person to split. And the greater the split, the higher the stress. The Africans were wise to this; the explorer hadn't a clue.
Can driven people be spotted? Yes, of course. There are many symptoms that suggest a person is driven. Among the ones I see most often are these:
1. A driven person is most often gratified only by accomplishment. Somewhere in the process of maturation this person discovers that the only way he can feel good about himself and his world is to accumulate accomplishments. This discovery may be the result of formative influences at an early age; as a child, affirmation and approval may have been received from a parent or influential mentor only when something had been finished. Nothing of value may have ever been said until that task was completed. Thus the only way he could find love and acceptance was through accomplishment.
I was standing at the entrance of the arena where my granddaughter plays indoor soccer. A small boy, no older than nine, came out the door and spied his father. "I scored a goal, Dad," he said with excitement. "Yeah," his father replied, "but you missed the chance for two others."
This exchange, which happened just a day or two ago, caused me to wonder if I wasn't watching a boy who was being shaped by his father to define life and human value only in terms of accomplishment. You got one, but you could have done more. In such ways a lasting message is implanted in the boy's soul, and it is done by an important authority figure.
A psychology of achievement sometimes captures the heart in circumstances like that. A person begins to reason that if one accomplishment resulted in good feelings and the praise of others, then several more accomplishments may bring an abundance of good feelings and affirmations. Or if one accomplishment (in this case a goal) is not good enough, then perhaps three more will gain what I need most: approval.
So the driven person begins to look for ways to accumulate more and more achievements. He will soon be found doing two or three things at one time, because that brings even more of this strange sort of pleasure. He becomes the sort of person who is always reading books and attending seminars that promise to help him use what time he has even more effectively. Why? So that he can produce more accomplishments, which in turn will provide greater gratification.
This is the kind of person who sees life only in terms of results. As such, he has little appreciation for the process leading toward results. This kind of person would love to fly from New York to Los Angeles at supersonic speed, because to travel at ground speed and see the hills of Pennsylvania, the golden wheat of Iowa and Nebraska, the awesomeness of the Rockies, and the deserts of Utah and Nevada would be a terrible waste of time. Upon arrival in Los Angeles after a swift two-hour trip, this driven person would be highly irritated if the plane took four extra minutes to get into the gate. Arrival is everything to this accomplishment-oriented individual; the trip means nothing.
2. A driven person is preoccupied with the symbols of accomplishment. He is usually conscious of the concept of power, and he seeks to possess it in order to wield it. That means that he will be aware of the symbols of status: titles, office size and location, positions on organizational charts, and special privileges.
There is generally a concern for one's own notoriety when in a state of drivenness. Who, the driven person wonders, knows about what I am doing? How can I be better connected with the "greats" of my world? These questions often preoccupy the driven person.
3. A driven person is usually caught in the uncontrolled pursuit of expansion. Driven people like to be a part of something that is getting bigger and more successful. They are usually on the move, seeking the biggest and the best opportunities. They rarely have any time to appreciate the achievements to date.
The nineteenth-century English preacher Charles Spurgeon once said:
Success exposes a man to the pressures of people and thus tempts him to hold on to his gains by means of fleshly methods and practices, and to let himself be ruled wholly by the dictatorial demands of incessant expansion. Success can go to my head and will unless I remember that it is God who accomplishes the work, that he can continue to do so without my help, and that he will be able to make out with other means whenever he wants to cut me out.You can see this unfortunate principle in the pursuit of some careers. But you can also see it in the context of spiritual activity, for there is such a thing as a spiritually driven person who is never satisfied with who he is or what he accomplishes in religious work. And of course this means that his attitude toward those around him is much the same. He is rarely pleased with the progress of his peers or subordinates. He lives in a constant state of uneasiness and restlessness, looking for more efficient methods, greater results, deeper spiritual experiences. There is usually no sign that he will ever be satisfied with himself or anyone else.
Here in North America we now live in what I call the era of the visionary church. Almost every pastor is judged on the basis of whether he/she has a vision. And this usually means a vision of how the church can grow, grow, grow. The pastoral care of the people - which for hundreds of years has been the aim of a church - is less important in comparison to the gathering of more people. Because more people means more programs, more buildings, more employed staff. Doubtless this is not all bad if it results in bringing unchurched people into the kingdom of God. But one wants to watch a lot of this "vision" and ask how much of it is satisfying the need of a driven leader who has to see things expand at all costs.
My speculation will probably irritate some. But even if I appear to have exaggerated my point, it will not hurt to take a second look at what we assume to be blessing if we discover it was fuelled by drivenness and not by calledness.
4. Driven people tend to have a limited regard for integrity. They can become so preoccupied with success and achievement that they have little time to stop and ask if their inner person is keeping pace with the outer process. Usually it is not, and there is an increasing gap, a breakdown in integrity. People like this often become progressively deceitful; and they not only deceive others, but they also deceive themselves. In the attempt to push ahead relentlessly, they lie to themselves about motives; values and morals are compromised. Shortcuts to success become a way of life. Because the goal is so important, they drift into ethical shabbiness. Driven people become frighteningly pragmatic.
5. Driven people are not likely to bother themselves with the honing of people skills. They are not noted for creating environments in which it is a pleasure for others to work. The truth is that programs, projects, and tasks are more important to them than people. Because their eyes are upon goals and objectives, they are rarely sensitive to the people about them, except as they can be used for the fulfilment of one of the goals. And if others are not found to be useful, then they may be seen as obstacles or competitors when it comes to getting something done.
There is usually a "trail of bodies" in the wake of the driven person. Where once others praised him for his seemingly great leadership, there soon appears a steady increase in frustration and hostility, as they see that the driven person cares very little about the health and growth of human beings. It becomes apparent that there is a non-negotiable agenda, and it is supreme above all other things. Colleagues and subordinates in the orbit of the driven person slowly drop away, one after another, exhausted, exploited, and disillusioned. Of this person we are most likely to find ourselves saying, "He is miserable to work with, but he certainly gets things done."
And therein lies the rub. He gets things done, but he may destroy people in the process. Not an attractive sight. Yet the ironic thing, which cannot be ignored, is that in almost every great organization, religious and secular, people of this sort can be found in key positions. Even though they carry with them the seeds of relational disaster, they often are indispensable to the action.
One day, many years ago, I was in the lobby of our church having a conversation with one of our staff members. A woman, Marilyn, came through the front entrance. Marilyn struggled with mental difficulties and was always highly medicated. In her somewhat dazed state she often seemed a drain on people because she talked slowly and raised topics unimportant to busy people ... like me (I am ashamed to say).
Seeing Marilyn, I called across the lobby, "Hello, Marilyn. How are you?" and then quickly turned back to my conversation with the staff member in the hope that she would realize I was busy and not intrude.
But that was not to be. Suddenly I was aware that Marilyn was approaching, in fact inserting herself between me and my conversation partner. Looking up at me - she was a very short woman - she said in her slow, medicated, and flat tone of voice, "Pastor Mac, you say, 'Hello, Marilyn. How are you?' but you really do not want to know. You are too busy to pay attention to someone like me. I'm just not important enough."
And Marilyn was right! Perhaps a score of other people felt the same way but didn't have the courage to say it in the same way. Marilyn's medications suspended those social "graces" that keep us from saying what we are thinking and caused her to say the exact truth. I could only apologize to her and ponder the evidence that I suffered from drivenness to a considerable extent.
6. Driven people tend to be highly competitive. They see each effort as a win-or-lose situation. And, of course, the driven person feels he must win, must look good before others. The more driven he is, the larger the score by which he needs to win. Winning provides the evidence the driven person desperately needs that he is right, valuable, and important. Thus, he is likely to see others as competitors or as enemies who must be beaten - perhaps even humiliated - in the process.
A man comes to mind with whom I played board games from time to time when I was a boy. It was not only important to him that he win but that he win big, as they say. If we played Monopoly, he would bankrupt me and then (stretching the rules) loan me money to keep on playing so that I could lose a second time. If we were playing Scrabble, he would run up the score with his far superior vocabulary and keep me struggling in the game even though I had lost heart and interest a long time ago. To this day, board games are something I will do anything to avoid (much to my wife's chagrin). The echoes of the repeated humiliations years ago remain with me. Driven people do this to others. And shouldn't!
7. A driven person often possesses a volcanic force of anger,which can erupt anytime he senses opposition or disloyalty. This anger can be triggered when people disagree, offer an alternative solution to a problem, or even hint at just a bit of criticism. The anger may not surface as physical violence. But it can take the form of verbal brutality: profanity or humiliating insults, for example.
The anger can express itself in vindictive acts such as firing people, slandering them before peers, or simply denying them things they have come to expect, such as affection, money, or even companionship.
Frankly; I would not have believed the story had it not been told by a person I trust. Picture an open office of a small business with several working associates. The office manager, a woman who has worked in the office for fifteen years, has made a request to the business-owner for a week off to be with a sick baby. When he refuses, she responds tearfully, asking him to reconsider. Big mistake! When he sees her tears, he snarls, "Clean out your desk and get out of here; I don't need you anyhow." When she is gone he turns to the horrified onlookers and says, "Let's get one thing straight; you're all here for only one reason: to make money for this business. And if you don't like that, get out right now!"
Tragically, many good people who surround the driven person are more than willing to absorb the impact of such anger although it desperately hurts them, because they reason that the boss or the leader is good at what he or she does. Sometimes the anger and its cruel effects are accepted simply because no one has either the courage or the ability to stand up to the driven person.
Recently a person who serves on the board of a major Christian organization told me of encounters with the executive director that included outbursts of rage studded with extraordinary profanity and demeaning language. When I asked why board members accepted this form of behaviour, which was neither rare nor open to excuse, he said, "I guess we were so impressed with the way God seemed to use him in his public ministry that we were reluctant to confront him." Is there anything else worth saying about the driven person, who by now appears to be entirely unlikeable? Yes, simply this:
8. Driven people are usually abnormally busy, are averse to play, and usually avoid spiritual worship. They are usually too busy for the pursuit of ordinary relationships in marriage, family, or friendship, or even to carry on a relationship with themselves - not to speak of one with God. Because driven people rarely think they have accomplished enough, they seize every available minute to attend more meetings, to study more material, to initiate more projects. They operate on the precept that a reputation for busyness is a sign of success and personal importance. Thus they attempt to impress people with the fullness of their schedules. They may even express a high level of self-pity, bemoaning the "trap" of responsibility they claim to be in, wishing aloud that there was some possible release from all that they have to live with. But just try to suggest a way out!
The truth is that the very worst thing that could happen to them would be if someone provided them with a way out. They really wouldn't know what to do with themselves if there were suddenly less to do. Busyness for the driven person becomes a habit, a way of life and thought. They find it enjoyable to complain and gather pity, and they would probably not want it any different. But tell a driven person that, and you'll make him angry.
This then is the driven person - not an entirely attractive picture. What often disturbs me as I look at this picture is the fact that much of our world is run by driven people. We have created a system that rides on their backs. And where that is true in businesses, in churches, and in homes, the growth of people is often sacrificed for accomplishment and accumulation.
Pastors who are driven men or women have been known to burn out scores of assistants and lay leaders because of their need to head organizations that are the biggest, the best, and the most well known. There are businesspeople who claim Christian faith and who have enjoyed a reputation for graciousness in the church, but who are ruthless in the office, pushing people and squeezing them for the last ounce of energy simply so they themselves can enjoy the gratification of winning, accumulating, or establishing a reputation.
Among the more painful self-revelations of my life was that I am basically a driven person. I have, at one time or another, seen in myself almost all of the traits I have listed. That drivenness has created moments of crisis for me down through the years. And each time I had to come to grips with fresh new revelations of an insidious energy within me that wanted to achieve and accomplish things for reasons that were far from obedience to Jesus or the glory of God.
What I had to learn was that my drivenness needed to be consecrated on a daily basis. I had to listen to my wife and to those closest to me to see if they saw any of the signs of uncontrolled drivenness. I had to engage in regular self-examination to assure that the plans I was making, the leadership I was giving, the goals I was setting were more in alignment with calledness than drivenness. I had to learn how to listen to God and assure that I was moving according to His agenda and not my self-serving one. To ignore the possibility that my life could be taken over by the spirit of drivenness would be to my peril.
Some time ago a businessman became a Christian through the witness of a layman who is a good friend of mine. Not long after making his choice to follow Jesus Christ, he wrote a long letter to my friend who had guided him into faith. In it he described some of his struggles as the result of his driven condition. I requested permission to share part of the letter because it so vividly illustrated the driven person. He wrote:
This brutal description of a man at the bottom fortunately has a happy ending. For not long after his nine-day experience in a hotel room, he discovered the love of God and its capacity to engender dramatic change in his life. And a driven man turned into what we will call in our next chapter a called man. He got out of his "golden cage."
Several years ago I was at a point of great frustration in my life. Although I had a wonderful wife and three beautiful sons, my career was going badly. I had few friends, my oldest son began getting into trouble - he started failing in school - I was suffering from depression, there was great tension arid unhappiness in my family. At that time I had an opportunity to travel overseas where I stayed to work in a foreign company. This new opportunity was such an excellent one, financially and career-wise, that I made it number one in my life, forsaking all other values. I did many wrong (i.e., sinful) things to advance my position and success. I justified them as being of good consequence to my family (more money, etc.), which resulted in my lying to myself and my family and behaving wrongly in many ways.
Of course this was intolerable to my wife, and she and my family returned to the U.S. I was still blind, however, to the problems that were within me. My success, my salary, my career, all moved upward. I was caught in a golden cage. [italics mine]
Although many wonderful things were happening outside me, inside I was losing everything. My capacity to reason and my capacity to decide were both weakened. I would evaluate alternatives, constantly going over various options, always trying to pick the one that would maximize success and career. I knew in my heart that something was terribly wrong. I went to church, but the words there couldn't reach me. I was too caught up in my own world.
After a terrible episode with my family several weeks ago, I completely gave up my course of thinking and went to a hotel room for nine days to figure out what to do. The more I thought, the more troubled I became. I began to realize how dead I really was, how so much of my life was dark. And worse than that, I could see no way out. My only solution was to run and hide, to start in a different place, to sever all connections.
In the Bible few men typify the driven man better than Saul, the first king of Israel. Unlike the previous story, which had a happy conclusion, this one has a miserable ending, for Saul never got out of his golden cage. All he did was heap increasing amounts of stress upon himself. And it destroyed him.
The Bible's introduction to Saul should be warning enough that the man had some flaws that, if not addressed within his inner world, would cause him quickly to lose personal control.
There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah, the son of a Benjamite, a mighty man of valor. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a choice and handsome man, and there was not a more handsome person than he among the sons of Israel; from his shoulders and up he was taller than any of the people. (1 Sam. 9:1-2)Saul possessed three unearned characteristics at the beginning of his public life that had the potential to become assets or serious liabilities. Which they would be was his choice. And how Saul made those choices depended upon the daily order of his private world.
The three characteristics? First, wealth; second, an attractive appearance; and third, a physically large and well-developed body. All were attributes of a person's public world. In other words, the initial impression was that Saul was a better man than anyone around him. All three external marks commanded attention and gained him quick advantages. (Each time I think of Saul's natural gifts, I recall the bank president some years ago who said to me, "MacDonald, you could go a long way in the business world if you were about six inches taller.") And, most importantly, they provided him with a sort of charisma that made possible his achieving some early success without ever having to develop a heart of wisdom or spiritual stature. He was simply a fast starter.
As Saul's story unfolds in the biblical text, we learn some other things about the man, things that could have either contributed to his success or become a part of his ultimate failure. We are told, for example, that he was good with words. When he was given a chance to speak before crowds, he was eloquent. The stage was set for a man to consolidate power and command recognition without ever having to develop any sense of a strong inner world first. And that was where the danger lay.
When Saul became king of Israel, he enjoyed too much immediate success. It apparently made him unaware that he had any limits to his life. He spent little time pondering his need for others, engendering a relationship with God, or even facing his responsibilities toward the people over whom he ruled. The signs of a driven man began to appear.
Saul became a busy man; he saw worlds he thought needed conquering. Thus, when he faced an impending battle with the Philistines, Israel's great enemy of the day, and waited at Gilgal for Samuel the prophet to come and offer the necessary sacrifices, he grew impatient and irritable when the holy man did not arrive on time. Saul felt that his timetable was being compromised; he had to get on with things. His remedy? Offer the sacrifice himself. And that is exactly what he did.
The result? A rather serious breach of covenant with God. Offering sacrifice was the kind of thing prophets like Samuel did, not kings like Saul. But Saul had forgotten that because he saw himself as being too important.
From that time forward Saul found himself on a downhill track. "Now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart" (1 Sam. 13:14). This is how most driven men end.
Stripped of what blessing and assistance he had had from God up to this point, Saul's drivenness began to reveal itself even further. Soon all of his energies became consumed in holding on to his throne, competing with young David, who had caught the imagination of the people of Israel.
The Scriptures give several examples of Saul's explosive anger, which drove him to outrage as well as to moments of paralyzing self-pity. By the end of his life, he was a man out of control, seeing enemies behind every bush. Why? Because from the very beginning Saul had been a driven man, and he had never cultivated the order of his private world.
I wonder what Saul's point total would have been on Thomas Holmes's stress chart. I suspect it would have been up in the range of stroke and heart attack victims. But Saul never came to grips with his drivenness, either through something like a stress chart or by simply facing the inner rebukes God would have liked for him to have heard within his private world. Saul would not have lasted long among the twelve disciples Jesus picked. His own compulsions were far too strong. That which had driven him to grasp power and not let go, that which had caused him to turn on his closest supporters, and that which caused him to make a successive series of unwise decisions, finally led him to a humiliating death. He was the classic driven man.
To the extent that we see him in ourselves, we have work to do in our private worlds. For an inner life fraught with unresolved drives will not be able to hear clearly the voice of Christ when He calls. The noise and pain of stress will be too great.
Unfortunately, our society abounds with Sauls, men and women caught in golden cages, driven to accumulate, to be recognized, or to achieve. Our churches, unfortunately, abound with these driven people as well. Many churches are fountains gone dry. Rather than being springs of life-giving energy that cause people to grow and to delight in God's way, they become sources of stress. The driven man's private world is disordered. His cage may be lavishly golden. But it's a trap; inside there is nothing that lasts.
Extracted from Gordon Macdonald's Ordering Your Private World.
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