Big Picture Definitions

Oh, life.  Sometimes I wonder about you.  Like how the heck you and I are supposed to work together.  Or how I'm supposed to survive you without completely botching everything up. 

I have felt this tremendous pressure lately - probably self-imposed - to have somehow "arrived" at a job better than one as an admin assistant and to own a home or to at least be living somewhere other than with my parents. (I hate seeing that last part in black and white.)  I wrestle back and forth - do I get an apartment?  Do I buy house?  What is this desire to own a home?  As Christians, how much of the American Dream should we buy into?  What does it look like to live in community?  Where should I live?  Why do we own homes?  What does it ultimately signify?  And if I go back to Africa for any length of time, shouldn't I really answer that question first before I go and buy a house?  Am I less of a person for not being out on my own?  What if people think I'm a slacker?  Am I enabling some kind of crazy habit and I don't even realize it?  Why do I have this job?  Am I a good steward of my talents and skills?  Why am I not better using the education I have?  Should I be doing something different vocationally?  Is this really how it's supposed to be?

I have no good answers, unfortunately.  I suppose some of my thought process stems from reading books like Radical by David Platt and Crazy Love by Francis Chan, books that really challenge(d) me to reevaluate biblical truths versus things I had been told all my life, things that I just bought hook, line, and sinker.  A lot of "why" questions came out as a result of those books - why this, why that, why not this, why not that.

I really appreciated what Shiao Chong wrote in an article for Comment:    

If we don't make enough money to buy the latest technological gadgets, watch the latest movies, wear the latest fashions, eat at the trendiest places, in short, if we do not have the money power to participate in the culture of consumerism, to be a consumer, we are left out at the margins; we are not "in" or "hip"; we are made to feel that we are missing out. We are not worthy because we don't fit the big picture definition of who we are supposed to be.

But just who is it that we are supposed to be and what is the big picture definition?  Who is writing that definition?  And why are we defining our worth on whether we have a home or a corporate career?  Why am I defining my worth based on those things?  Not to say that those things are wrong - having things, pursuing a great job, etc - but the question must be "What is our motive?"  Why am I seeking those things?  And are we doing it from a biblical, Christ-centered worldview? 

I sure wish I knew.