The latest TV craze is focused on the word “extreme”: Extreme Sports, Extreme Makeover, Extreme Weight Loss, Extreme Cheapskates, Extreme Games, Extreme Chef, and so on. The word “extreme” implies intensity, excess, even severity. People are no longer happy just watching “normal” or “regular.” Abnormal is better, even if it means people might be harmed or humiliated.
This new trend, however, has nothing on young children. They’ve always done everything to the extreme.
Take Emerald, for example. Pulling one tissue out of the box isn’t enough. She wants them all, and not just to set them aside, but to crumple them. And toilet paper? If rolling out a little is fun, doing the whole roll is even better.
But children aren’t the only ones. We adults often forsake the middle ground for the extremes, too. As a first year elementary school teacher in Chicago, I remember giving up healthy lunches to eat cookies instead. They partnered well with coffee and satisfied my sweet tooth. But 2 or 3 didn’t satisfy, so I usually ate half a bagful and saw nothing wrong with that. Surely that was extreme.
It’s probable that once we’re settled in at one extreme or the other, we can get comfortable there, which is the reason our culture needs so many Twelve Step programs. We become so used to living in max-mode that we need help learning how to do it a different way.
So, what is God’s point of view on all this? Is he against living in the extremes?
No. He actually wants an extreme commitment from us, a commitment to worship him, bow down to him, humble ourselves before him, forsake all other gods in favor of him. Since this sounds like too much of a good thing, something we could never accomplish, he gave us a model: his Son Jesus.
When Jesus was asked what motivated him to do the things he did, he said, “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” (John 5:19) Now that’s extreme. And though we can’t do it to perfection like he did (especially the part about never sinning), if we pursue extreme devotion to him, the result will be a more upright life along with lots of inner peace.
And getting back to the way children often take things too far, there is an up side. When it comes to Christmas time, little ones oooh and aaah over every decoration and string of lights. Their mouths drop open and their extreme pleasure comes out in gasps or squeals.
Wouldn’t God be pleased if our amazement over him was just that extreme?
Jesus said, “I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” (John 5:30)
