The Glory of Christ and a Paper Bag Life

Unloading the last of my grocery run, I crumbled the brown paper bags which held produce moments earlier and tossed them across the kitchen into the garbage. I paused, staring at the pantry door where the trash cans live, as a tinge of guilt ran up my spine and bounced around in my mind. 

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shocked by the strange and seemingly silly tug of empathy that sprung up over discarded grocery bags. Before I could evaluate the emotion, I felt the self-righteous question, “Who gets to decide when and how these are discarded?” 

It’s not lost on me how I could make this an altruistic argument of recycling and stewarding the earth well, but really, my guilt was rooted in a daily battle I was fighting of feeling wrongly disposed of and carelessly discarded by people I love. 

“Who are they to decide when and how I’m used up?”

The Paper Bag Life

No one ever promised ministry or the fishbowl life of my husband’s role as a pastor would be easy. In fact, we were only told the opposite by trusted mentors and leaders, but sure enough self-righteousness deceives in ways I should, but never do, see coming. 

In the months leading up to this trash-can-crisis, I had established my feet firmly in the soil of, “I deserve better than this.” 

I deserve a fair voice. 

I deserve admiration for service. 

I deserve the opportunity to act as I see fit. 

I deserve the space to air my grievances. 

I deserve a community that speaks out against wrongs done to me. 

I could spend days listing the “I deserves…” which had taken up sinful residence in my heart and mind, but standing in the doorway of my shoulder-wide pantry opening, I was reminded of 2 Corinthians 4:7 in a way only the Spirit who is able to break through a calloused, bitter heart like mine could… “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

The Clarity of Humiliation

Revealed in that moment was a mountain of evidence I had wrongly placed value in my own “jar of clay” rather than in the true treasure of knowing and being known by Christ. Like a flood, the guilt I felt over a useless paper bag revealed my own failed attempts to grab self-worth and value in places from which it was never promised. 

As a decade or more of my clamoring, silent begging, and frustrated unseen work rose up inside of me, I saw more clearly that the promise for the life of a Christ follower is not one less discarded, but rather more. 

My jar of clay, or more appropriately for my crisis moment, my “paper bag life”, was purposed to be discarded and overlooked in order to more clearly display the surpassing power that belongs to God… and not to me. 

My attempts at, and let’s call them what they are, being loved, known more deeply, and admired were all blockades preventing the glory of Christ from being made known in me. 

The Humility-Exaltation Paradox in the Gospels

Looking at the gospels, John the Baptist’s words in John 3:29-30 can only be declared by one who has seen the eternal worth of a discarded life for the purpose of exalting Christ. It’s unsurprising John’s testimony of Christ’s exaltation follows Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus in John 3:1-21. 

We peek into the life of two men in John 3, both found wrestling with the paradox of exaltation and humility, albeit, to very different degrees. Nicodemus stands as the placeholder and an analogy of self-exaltation. He’s the voice and keeper of the law for the religious. The one who, in his mind, judges what is righteous and unrighteous. But surely, and made known in my own life, the law only condemns. It’s a mirror to see our plight and position before unending holiness. 

In an attempt to be a woman I supposed people wanted me to be, I often found myself side-stepping the opportunity for humiliation. If my fate is made known to me by the law, perhaps I can blind my eyes and other's eyes to it and simply “get by” with faux kindness, smiles when I feel anything but joy, and empty conversations. 

What I found though, was both the problem and benefit of “getting by” leads to not seeing who I really am, a desperate sinner in need of a treasure I can’t buy, earn, or pretend to possess. It ends in a suffocated spirit, unwilling to daily absorb the grace only Christ can offer. 

John stands as the placeholder on the opposite side of the paradox. His life is one of total self-depreciation, a life where Christ can be rightly exalted. And at the rock bottom of humility and self-depreciation, John only finds joy. John 3:29-30, "Therefore this joy of mine is complete. He must increase and I must decrease."

The Joy of Being Used Up

The weaker, more disposable, and humiliated I become, the more Christ’s strength, eternality, and glory is magnified. 

My prayer for the remainder of my life is for many more “paper bag” moments. While temporarily painful, a “paper bag life” will deliver a joy to the soul that can only be found by surrendering feeble attempts to dress up my life. The reward is confidence that when my life is discarded, I'm able to peer more deeply into the glory and grace of Christ. 

May those of us who have devoted our lives to the work of Christ find more opportunities to see pride, ambition, and self-righteousness decreased, discarded, and disposed of in hopes of the immeasurable worth of Christ being made known through us.