Apparently, the algorithms cannot figure me out. For a season, my newsfeeds were full of camping and RV content– someone missed the memo that I married an admittedly indoorsy man. The next trend on my feeds was cheerleading and dance competitions – again, someone missed not only the very apparent lack of estrogen in our home but also my complete inability to dance or even touch my toes. Recently, however, the algorithms have me pinned: my feed is all college ads, consultants telling me how to get my kids into all the ivies, and sports recruitment advice.

While the algorithm-makers finally figured out what’s renting space in my soul, their advertisements are having the opposite of their intended effect. I get so tired and overwhelmed by the daily dose of merit-based identity that I am checking my phone less and less and running to Jesus for his mercy more and more.

The Default Mode of the Human Heart

Martin Luther, a serious merit seeker if ever there were one, noted that the default mode of every fallen human heart is a spirit of earning and striving after our own merit. For years as a monk, he sought to live up to the law on his own strength. He strove to stand on merit-ground before the God he desperately wanted to please, and it left him tortured and exhausted. However, the Spirit opened his eyes to righteousness by faith alone in Christ alone (Galatians 3: 10–14). He shifted all his spiritual and existential weight from merit ground to mercy ground, and the church has been learning from him since.

While earning and performative identity are our fallen default modes, culture, personality, and upbringing often reinforce merit-based living. For decades now, the Holy Spirit, using the Word of God, has slowly taking apart the scaffolding of striving in my heart and mind; however, I’m still shocked to find how quickly I desert the solid ground of God’s mercy and flee to the easily shaken ground of merit. I find myself as foolish as the Galatians who, having begun in the Spirit devolved back into a spirit of striving in sanctification (Galatians 3: 1–6).

Preparing for the college application process with my high schoolers has been exposing a spirit of fearful striving within me and mine. Earn. Impress. Stand out. Strive. The language of merit-based living gets louder than the voice of the One who quiets us with a love we don’t deserve, could never merit, and can never un-earn. College acceptance rates, SAT scores, weighted GPAs, race times, and highlight reels all-too-easily shove me from mercy ground to merit ground. The hum of our household becomes frenetic and fearful rather than peaceful and trusting.

Moving Back to Mercy Ground

When I was in one of said frenzies of fear, the Holy Spirit was so gracious to offer an image that stopped me in my tracks. I was posturing myself to storm the castle on behalf of my sons, attempting to gain blessing by sheer force and intensity of will, because I’d completely forgotten that my Father is the king! I don’t need to help my children create a convincing resume to prove their worth. He not only gave them the intrinsic worth of image-bearers but also purchased them back to himself as the cost of the life of the Son. I don’t have to (and never could) convince him to provide for them; he has already gone above and beyond in proving his love for them on the cross. As Paul reasoned so compellingly, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

He delights to provide for his children, not on the basis of our merit, but solely on the basis of his abundant mercy. My fear evidences my forgetting that we are the sheep of his flock (Psalm 100:3; Luke 12:32). My fears are smoke signals helping to lead me to the very specific places where God’s perfect love has yet to be invited to cast out fear. I love the aged John’s gentle, pastoral words to the church:

“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him…There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment [merit ground], and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us [mercy ground]” (1 John 4:16; 18–19; emphasis mine).

The proper response to the strongholds of fear that the college application process is exposing in me is to hand over the keys to the King so his love is invited within. More mercy, not more merit–– that’s the Scriptural prescription for the chronically fearful heart. Sit longer in his presence rather than strive harder–– that’s the Scriptural prescription for souls stuck in the quicksand of merit.

Now, when the algorithms flood my feed (and my soul) with their merit-based mantra, I approach the throne of grace with confidence to freely ask for what we need on the basis of his mercy (Hebrews 4:16). After all, my Father happens to be the King. I’ve no need to storm the castle or fret in fear. My heavenly Father knows what we need and will supply for every legitimate one according to his riches in glory, not according to our merit (Matthew 7:32–34; Philippians 4:19).