Let us not be petty.

In the spring of 2009, I packed up my belongings and moved to Washington, D.C. to intern with a Christian human rights organization, International Justice Mission (IJM).  Founded in 1994 to combat the most ruthless forms of injustice you can imagine, IJM frees slaves, protects widows, and defends orphans.  Even more impressive, the work IJM does not only rescues existing victims, but deters would-be perpetrators by strengthening local rule of law, meaning though IJM has directly rescued thousands of victims, they have likely protected millions. 

Being on the inside of IJM was invigorating.  Updates on covert rescue missions and recovery stories from IJM’s clients were daily events.  As a Christian organization, prayer is central to IJM’s everyday operations and daily at 11am, the IJM staff gathered in our largest conference room to pray.  The cadence of daily prayer was assuring and consistent: Prayer requests were shared, a Psalm was read, and heads were bowed.  As the clock neared 11:30, Gary Haugen, the founder of IJM, closed by reiterating the day’s requests and sharing additional matters on his mind.  Years later, many of the requests, prayers, and stories have faded, but one of Gary’s common addendums still stands out: Let us not be petty. 

Time and again, this prayer humbled me.  Somehow, even in the whirlwind of hearing about slaves, groundbreaking legislation, or rescue missions, my mind was still quick to wade into the fleeting and unimportant.  Gary’s appeal Let us not be petty repeatedly pulled me out of the waters of my own self-centeredness and urged me to re-focus on the course ahead: prayers on behalf of the oppressed.  In those moments, Gary’s prayer reminded me that there was real, eternally relevant work to be done that was so much bigger than the outfit I wanted or the accidentally insensitive comment of a friend. 

More than a decade later, Let us not be petty continues to convict me.  I’ve returned to this prayer an astounding number of times after moments of weak surrender to frivolous thoughts:

“They got more than me”

“They weren’t nice to me”

“It’s unfair”

It is actually remarkable how, once boiled down to their core makings, my emotional toils reflect that of a kindergartener.

The Sunday School responses to this pettiness are frustratingly endless:

I recognize that God has unique plans for each of us, so comparison is a faulty barometer of how “well” we are living our lives.  

I understand that for every person who has more than I have, there are millions with less and that I’ve benefitted immensely from things entirely outside of my control, so if anything, I’m on the wrong side of the line to claim injustice.  

I know that if I apply an eternal perspective and remember my life is not about my own achievements, but about God’s glory and furthering His kingdom, then none of my petty concerns matter – they are fleeting.  

And finally, I realize that pettiness is a divider – a tool of the enemy to sow discord and bitterness amongst God’s people.  Comparisons and rivalries are quick to inhibit the development of the authentic, transparent community to which we are called.

Yet, none of these Sunday School answers actually help me feel better.  Because try as I may to remove the petty from my life, it persists.  I often feel shorted, forgotten, or left out, incentivizing me to spend time and mental energy rationalizing why my lot is actually better then how I somehow feel. 

But in many ways, this rationalization is the issue itself: when I spend energy rationalizing my lot, I’m engaging in an endless game of whack-a-mole.  Because the reality is trivial plights will always be there, enticing me to use my precious energy to play their silly games.  The answer to pettiness is not in rationalizing, justifying, or manipulating situations so I somehow feel ‘better than’, but in spending my attention elsewhere.  When I focus on the inequity du jour, I’m hoping God will rebalance the scales based on my imperfect weights, so I can feel like things have been made fair. 

But, I could spend my entire life in this endless game of shifting rules where winning is eternally elusive and playing at all requires endless attention to meaningless details and it would all be a waste.   My mind space, my life, my potential for the kingdom of God, is far too precious for that. 

Escaping pettiness will be impossible as long as my ill-informed versions of ‘fair’ or ‘success’ are part of the equation.  George Will writes “Pettiness is the tendency of people without large purposes” a reminder that liberation from pettiness is less about how to navigate frivolous waters to avoid the petty and more about ensuring our course is charted towards that which is worthy, regardless of what floats around us.  The petty will always be there – we must learn to avoid the distraction that it can create and instead set our eyes straight ahead, on Christ. 

What is at the forefront of your mind?  What is your focus?  Is it to be right, to be accepted, to be the best?  Or is it Christ and that which is eternal?  A.W. Tozer said ‘As God is exalted to the right place in our lives, a thousand problems are solved all at once.’  We can waste years by refusing to accept who God ought to be in our lives and what that means for everything else. 

So, as we navigate our daily battles, I pray:

For the Holy Spirit to speak boldly to us, that we may not be petty

To use an eternal lens to evaluate which plights to fight and which to ignore 

And for the peace that comes only from surrendering to God and all He has in store to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33 (ESV)