One of my favorite bands right now is AJR. I feel like they’re the perfect graduation band for those of us who love Mayday Parade and All Time Low in High School. They speak a lot to the collective millennial experience. I appreciate them for their honesty in their lyrics and keep them on repeat for the music. The vibes bring me back to those summer nights driving my Jeep Commander down country roads to nowhere with my best friends with the radio turned up with whatever alt-rock we burned onto a CD before we headed out for the night.
Many people still feel the same way we did when we were eighteen even though many of us older millennials are in our thirties now—lost but not hopeless, purposeless but not nihilistic. I thank God I’ve continued the race and know the direction in which I’m going. Your average normie on the street, however, knows there is something greater than themselves out there, but they don’t turn to the tried and true ways to find that purpose in their lives.
For many, it’s not their fault. Despite being in a Christian country, a lot of people have a warped view of who God is and what our place in His Kingdom are. This comes out in AJR’s title song, Maybe Man:
I wish I was God, I'd never trip up
And if I did, well, so fuckin' what?
I could be cruel and break all your stuff
Yeah, I'd be loved no matter what
Many people look at God as if he were just the best human. They try to place God in man’s image rather than the other way around. People can see something that doesn’t make sense like a transgender person and either proclaim that God intentionally made a woman’s soul trapped in a man’s body or that God made a mistake. They can see a little boy with stage four cancer and believe that if they were God, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen. In reality, it’s our own human nature that causes these “glitches” in nature.
Sin distorts and destroys. It might not be your sin that caused the error, but it was sin nonetheless. Our perfect utopian world was destroyed because of Adam and Eve’s choice to reject God, and in turn, our choice to reject God and choose things of this world. Every sin we commit will have consequences to us and to others both in this life and the next.
So no, if we were God, we wouldn’t be perfect as Our God is. The first wrong choice was an attempt to become God. We make that choice every time we choose to try to gain more control. In an attempt to try to play God either by an desire for things of this world or a choice to be your “authentic” self without God, you wind up, not only being further from God, but you become less human. You become more of a slave to your desires.
But if I was God, it'd get kinda weird
'Cause you would only say what I wanna hear
And then you would die, you'd love me to death
I never know who the hell I am
This is how many normal people see us Christians— blindly, following God and checking boxes. I hate to tell you, but checking the box of going to mass every Sunday and confession once a year is not going to get you to heaven. This is the prescription that Christ gave us, but if our heart is not in the right place, these become empty gestures.
Ultimately, you need to desire God with all your heart. No matter what life throws at you, you are called to become more like Christ. It’s not easy. It really sucks when you’re just starting out. You lose family and friends. It challenges your preconceived beliefs. It calls you to live a greater life than you’re living now. Sometimes it will feel like checking boxes. The difference will be your desire. Are you going to mass because you think if you go enough, you’ll get into heaven or are you there because you truly desire to be with God. Even if you’re tired or not feeling it, do you desire more to give into your weakness or apathy or to be with Christ. This is what separates the Christians that are running the race as to win and those that “only say what I want to hear.”
I wish I was me, whoever that is
I could just be and not give a shit
Hey, I'll be whatever makes you a fan
'Cause I don't know who the hell I am
Without God, we won’t know who the hell we are. If we’re made in God’s image, but we do not know God, it’s easy to look in the mirror and not recognize who we’re looking at. We will try to take those imperfections we see and conform them more and more to this world not realizing we are destroying who we are in the process.
There is no need for hopelessness. There’s no need to be lost. There’s a clear path for us to follow, and you never have to walk alone. Walking that road with a pure heart and authentic joy is the way to reach out to those people like Adam, Jack, and Ryan, to get them pointed in the right direction so that we can leave the Maybe Man behind and become who we are meant to be.
Pax Christi,