We all desire to live life to its fullest, to ultimately flourish. This desire is what motivates the minds of inventors, hearts of the compassionate, and hands of the laborer. We want to live such a life that embodies true human flourishing at its highest potential.
Mothers’ care for their children with this hope, fathers’ toil to provide for their families; young professionals tirelessly expend themselves to climb the ladder of success; and elders endeavor with care to pass on a life’s worth of knowledge and experience, hopeful for the flourishing of the next generation.
Yet many of us will search for a lifetime to find our balance, to obtain this ideal; only to be left wondering when the light of flourishing will shine through the tunnel of life.
So…
Is there “life that is really life,” (1 Timothy 6:19) as the Apostle Paul suggests to Timothy? Andy Crouch believes so, and espouses what this life looks like and how to obtain it in his new book Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk & True Flourishing. Crouch is the executive editor of Christianity Today, and an explorer of faith and culture.
Paradox of Flourishing
Across the world and across time, all humans have sought their own way to flourish. Many of them have searched in the wrong places. Adam and Eve, those closest to human flourishing as God intended, sought to find a better way of life by following the advice of Satan and eating of the forbidden tree. We know how that ended.
You and I do this daily. We orient our lives and decisions to what we believe will provide us with the best possible outcome of what we define as flourishing. Yet, what we define as flourishing is rarely what is truly best for us. Often we choose extreme strength or weakness –to either receive acclaim by our expressed authority or our expressed vulnerability.
In Strong and Weak, Crouch explains the paradoxical path to true flourishing; one that both sympathizes with our struggles yet pushes past our superficial limitations. He explains:
“This book is about how to embrace the life for which we were made-life that embraces the paradox of flourishing, that pursues greater authority and greater vulnerability at the same time.” (p.12)
He continues to build upon this idea of embracing the life we were made for, by explaining the proper balance between authority and vulnerability: being strong and weak. According to Crouch, the paradox of human flourishing is that one must both hold authority and have vulnerability at the same time.
To clarify this seeming contradiction, he makes uses of a 2×2 chart, which is composed of two axes. The vertical axis representing authority and the horizontal axis representing vulnerability. The two axes dividing four quadrants: Upper Right-Flourishing, Lower Right-Suffering, Upper Left-Exploiting, and Lower Left-Withdrawing.
He reveals the nitty gritty of flourishing by thoroughly explaining this chart. So, don’t think you’ve now got it all figured out, you still need to read the book.
Warnings & Ways
Crouch explains that because of sin the path to true human flourishing has been tainted. We each struggle with the unfortunate effects of sin in our own lives, yet collective sin has also become institutionalized. This has led to the exploitation of authority in our world and forced vulnerability leading to suffering.
When either authority or vulnerability is valued over the other, a distortion of flourishing occurs. This leads to an extreme. Vulnerability absent from authority leads to suffering. Authority absent from vulnerability leads to exploitation. Even worse, withdrawal occurs when both authority and vulnerability are absent.
The path to true flourishing is not an absence of authority or vulnerability, or both, but rather a balance between the two. Crouch states:
“We are meant to experience more and more of the full authority intended for human beings, which can never be separated from the full vulnerability—the ultimate meaningful risk—of entrusting ourselves to one another and to our Creator.” (p.111)
Maintaining both authority and vulnerability is the way of flourishing. It involves moving out of exploitation, suffering, or withdrawal and onto the path to flourishing.
Yet, this seems like a monumental task. Anyone who has struggled with depression will know escaping withdrawal is much easier said than done. So too, rescuing oneself from under the oppression of exploitation (extreme authority) or out of the depths of suffering (extreme vulnerability) is a hurdle which only seems to be overcome in dreams. So the question becomes, “How do we obtain flourishing?”
Redemptive Flourishing
This is, in my humble opinion, is the highlight of Crouch’s book. Mixed within the stories, charts, and discussion of human flourishing is the beautifully simplistic, yet eternal path to flourishing: the Gospel.
Crouch rightly shows that no human can obtain the fullness of flourishing on their own, but that through Jesus flourishing has been obtained for us.
“The good news is that we cannot, and do not have to, pull ourselves out of the mire….We will not restore the world to its intended flourishing by impressive feats of self-improvement. Instead the restoration of the world flows from the singular life of a singular human being, Jesus…It is only Jesus, and the Spirit he has sent to empower his people for their redemptive mission in creation, who truly sets us free from the mire of poverty, apathy and tyranny.” (p.113)
He continues,
“It is a work of sovereign redemption by the One who rescued us when we could not rescue ourselves. And lasting progress toward the freedom and true power of Flourishing is a result of God’s gracious activity in the world.” (p. 113)
The paradoxical beauty of human flourishing is that it requires being both strong and weak, having servanthood authority (love) and embracing vulnerability (risk). And by God’s grace, this has all been accomplished for God’s children in Christ Jesus.
*For more on Andy Crouch and the life of a leader with respect to authority and vulnerability, see my colleague Jeff Walton’s article.
No comments yet
Leave a Reply