What if I'm Overly Concerned with Being Virtuous?
On anxiety over virtuous living
I recently heard from someone who is reading To Live Well who expressed a concern that I don’t think I adequately addressed in the book: What if your problem is not so much that you struggle to pursue virtue, but that you think about being a virtuous person all the time? You are striving to be a virtuous person all the time. So much so that it overwhelms you. You grow anxious, self-critical, doubtful of your own intentions and actions, never content, never at peace, never able to say, “it is enough” and then rest and enjoy the good gifts God has given you. Tim Keller would describe you as the “Older Brother” type in the story of the Prodigal Son. This is an exhausting and impossible way to live, because it says, “You cannot feel safe, loved, or at peace until you achieve this impossible standard which only Christ could achieve on your behalf.” And the interesting thing is, if you find yourself in this position, with these fears, some of them are true! You aren’t living as virtuously as you could be! But it’s not the way you think. The very virtues you need to cultivate are the ones that will help free you from bondage, from the urge to keep striving for moral perfection on your own efforts, which you can never achieve. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, you need to cultivate the faith to trust in Christ’s finished work on the cross for your righteousness, the courage to delight in the good gifts God has given you to enjoy, and the hope that he is sanctifying you.
Faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross is difficult for many of us to comprehend viscerally. This is one good reason I think Christ instituted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, because we need a visceral experience of communing with him to make us aware of that reality. But it also helps when we realize that we are in union with Christ, that his righteousness is counted as our righteousness. That when God looks at us, he doesn’t see our sad attempts at virtues, but his Son’s glorious, perfect life imputed to us. And he loves us. Which doesn’t mean that we aren’t called to love and good works. We are. In fact, Ephesians 2:10 teaches that “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” I love this verse because it clearly lays out the right order of things. We are God’s good work, not our own. We were created in Christ Jesus, not in ourselves. And we were created in Christ not for sin, but for good works! And who prepared those works? Who planned them out? Not us, but God! So what’s our role in this? Just walking. All we have to do is walk in the footsteps God has laid out for us. Not in fear, because there is no fear of condemnation here. God already loves us! We just have to walk. So we walk with our heads held high, as beloved sons and daughters of God.
And this takes courage. Courage is important because if you truly believe that you have been redeemed by God and are righteous before his eyes, then you are free to delight in the good gifts he has given you! As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever! And how do we practically enjoy God? We enjoy God by delighting in his creation. By resting on the Sabbath from our labor and trusting that he will provide. By reading great poetry without guilt for being unproductive. By painting. By playing games with your family. By walking in creation and admiring what he has made. By giving thanks for your life. By enjoying the beauty, goodness, and truth he has made and being grateful. By practicing leisure. If you allow a drive to be perfect to overwhelm you, you will never rest from your labors and never enjoy God. You will come to see God as a taskmaster, not a generous Father. It requires courage to delight in God. Because it feels risky to rest. What if something goes wrong? What if I miss something? What if I should be getting work done? What if I should be helping people right now? What if I’m being selfish? Courage involves risk for the sake of the good. And here the good is delighting in God. What a wonderful good it is! As with all virtues, this takes practice. But over time, you can cultivate a habit of resting and delighting in God and letting your anxious thoughts go. They can be there, but let your attention settle on the present moment: a bird, a poem, a TV show, a human face.
Finally, hope is important for overcoming anxious, overwhelming thoughts about whether you are good enough. Ultimately, God is the one sanctifying you. As Paul writes in Philippians 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” He began the good work in you. He will bring it to completion. Not you. And again, that doesn’t mean you have no obligation to “walk” in the good works God has prepared for you beforehand. You do. Act virtuously! However, know that in the end, all those good works are God’s good works that he is orchestrating for his glory and your good! You can have perfect hope in your ultimate sanctification. He will bring that about. Rest in that truth. Your duty is to be honest with yourself. Where there is sin in your life, repent and turn from it. God will be faithful to forgive you. But there is no need to agonize over your righteousness. He will sanctify you. As Paul tells us in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Our end is written. And it is glorious. We can hope in that.
The goal of the virtuous life is not to think about living virtuously all the time, but to act virtuously and be present to people and wonders God has given us. Some deliberation about what is virtuous is necessary, from time to time, but the ideal is to form habits of virtue that allow you to contemplate less and be more. How do we do this? We walk in grace. We accept that we are already righteous before God because of Christ, we act courageously by resting and delighting in God, and we hope in our sanctification.
If you are interested in reading more about the virtues, please consider buying, sharing, and leaving an honest review for my new book, To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times!
Solid stuff, man. Appreciate all you do.
Thank you for your Brilliant expose on true Godly Virtuous Living.