Stealing God’s Job

Melanie Jean Juneau

If you asked a typical Catholic, “Are you stealing God’s job?”, they would laugh out loud at such a ridiculous question and emphatically deny it.  I know I did.  Granted, the wording of this question is designed to shock. Yet the question is also meant to provoke self- examination.  After someone asked me this question, I examined my life and was surprised at what I discovered. I realized like almost everyone else, I was trying to fulfill the role of God in my day-to-day life.

It is an easy trap for most modern people since we are pressured by obligations. In an attempt to cope, we resort to rushing around independently without God. We seize control as we  try to be ever more efficient with little time to relax, pray or socialize. The result is we end up living in isolated, man-made prisons that shut out other humans, never mind other living creatures and God.  Instead of seeking communion, each of us exists at the absolute centre of our little artificial universe.  The consequences are devastating.  Without realizing what we are doing,  each of us has assumed the role of king or queen of our tiny kingdoms with everything depending on us. In plain language, we are acting like God.

No wonder we are filled with anxiety; we are trying to fulfill a role humans  were never meant to fill. We are simply not wired to act independently without God. I was never designed to live alone like an island unto myself. Yet, in my pride, I cling tenaciously to my throne and crown. Everything in my psychological make-up forces me to cling to control, even though it is destroying my inner spirit. It seems most of us must hit the proverbial rock bottom before we are ready to change. I know for me, only when I was completely depleted and shattered, only then did I resign and give God back His job. Only then did I surrender an egocentric point of view and embrace reality.

Living day-to-day reality as if God does not exist is definitely absurd, but I only saw this fact after I surrendered and let go of control.  I thought I was a committed Christian, but I could not  find what is really important in life in self-created delusions. I could only discover the truth as I learned to live in harmony with a bigger universe than the one I created.

Even when I tried to be a good Catholic, I was still stealing God’s job.

When Jesus says I must die to myself, He is not speaking about some pious self-sacrifice that makes me look holy; He is talking about giving God his job back. Basically, that means allowing God to be my Saviour  rather than trying to save myself with pious good deeds and heroic acts. Like all Catholics, I missed the point when I talked about carrying my cross and acting like some self-appointed martyr. Jesus has something much more radical in mind than simply asking me to live a life of ascetical self-denial. The kind of inner transformation Jesus desires shatters my worldview; the worldview that places  me at the centre of the universe. Actually, God is not suppose to be just the centre of my reality, He is reality, He is my life:

Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

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9 thoughts on “Stealing God’s Job”

  1. This article slapped me in the face. I live in my own selfish, exhausting universe. I’ve bookmarked this and will be reading it again several times. Thank you.

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    1. melanie jean juneau

      Too bad it took me years of self-imposed agony to really understand that I cannot function independently

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