Thomas, Percy, James, and Other Insecure Train Engines

As the mother of two young boys, I am overly familiar with Thomas the Train. My son can name each train including number and color. We have a Thomas the Train tent, fan, camera, and shirt along with a small fortune invested in Thomas the Train wooden and plastic rails and both working and non working engines. As I type now, my son is watching Thomas chasing after a runaway kite on the TV.

As a parent, Thomas annoys me more than most children’s programs. It’s clean. The boys love it. But it has a quality about it that’s both true and disturbing. Those little engines are I.N.S.E.C.U.R.E. The theme of each episode is their need to be USEFUL in Sir Topham Hat’s eyes. Here’s a generic episode recap: James overhears Percy say something that makes James think he’s no longer useful and is getting sent to the junk yard. So James embarks on some ill thought out adventure to prove his usefulness but that results in a bridge getting toppled or Annie or Claribel going over a cliff. Then either James gets rebuked by Sir Topham Hat and it ends, or some engine accidentally does something helpful and gets lauded by Sir Topham Hat for being a “really useful engine.”

Does that not sum up most of our lives? Except we usually just get the rebuke and rarely the affirmation at the end of the day for being “really useful.” The quest for affirmation from an authority figure who only values us for our usefulness is … well … pretty much universal. I understand the angst of those little trains, and I’ve resorted to my own version of their destructive attempts to earn affirmation from authority time and time agin. I must perform. I must accomplish something useful. Otherwise, I’m going to be sent to the junk yard--disposed of, ignored, marginalized—if I can’t prove my worth and value by doing something useful.

But God spends much, much time in Scripture saying the exact opposite to me. If I got nothing else out of my study of Ephesians, I got loud and clear that I don’t perform to earn God’s favor. That is, in fact, the exact opposite of God’s message to me through the cross. I don’t seek to perform in useful ways to earn my security. I am secure. Period. With no strings attached. Not by my performance. Not because I am useful. But because of God’s great love for me poured out on the cross. Any real usefulness in the kingdom on my part flows from my deep confidence of who I am in Him.

In Counsel from the Cross, Elyse Fitzpatrick gives a case study from the life of a hard working husband, father, and church volunteer named Ernest. His wife has talked him into counseling because of increasing alienation between him and his two goth teenage sons. Ernest is committed to doing the right thing. He manages his stress and controls his emotions despite an intense work schedule, his responsibilities as a Sunday School teacher and deacon, and volunteering as an ESL tutor. The little time he cuts out for his boys is planned to be maturity-building exercises outdoors together. Ernest is annoyed and resentful at his sons’ rejection of him, because he sees himself as one who is very useful – one who meets his obligations and then some. Elyse correctly diagnoses Ernest’s heart – he is profoundly insecure and deathly fearful of failure in any area of life, in any area of PERFORMANCE. “His efforts to justify himself as a conscientious breadwinner … are subtle forms of idolatry, violations of the first commandment, and attempts to compete with the living God, who declares that he alone can save and justify guilty people.” But in Christ, empowered to live daily through gospel grace, Ernest “no longer needs to defend himself by finding fault with others to compensate for the faults in himself that he desperately tried to hide.”

Thomas and friends daily remind me of the ramifications of insecurity. They are a caricature of a very real problem. The need to be useful to win an authority’s favor is, as I said before, pretty universal. It’s the legacy of the fall of man. And performance idolatry has ruined many relationships, as each steps on the other in an attempt to feel better about themselves. God has freed us from this slavery, speaking over us once and for all His strong, clear words of approval. “It is finished,” He cried. The veil was torn. And we may ever boldly and confidently enter His presence—approved and secure. For eternity. Amen.