The Transactional Life

Before I became a Christian I lived a transactional life.

A transactional life is when, if someone is “mean” to us, then we return the favor and are “mean” back.

If we are snubbed, we snub that person back.

If our spouse makes a purchase, we justify going and making a purchase.

If our spouse spends a Saturday away from home having fun, we quickly arrange a solo day for ourselves.

If our child sees their sibling get something, that child also then expects to get something.

If our friend brings the teacher an apple, we bring the teacher an apple (or try to best the friend by bringing an apple pie!)

And what underlies the transaction is “my right to myself.”

So,

“That person snubbed me so I have a right to snub back.”

“My spouse spent money so I have a right to spend money too.”

“My sibling got to go to a sleepover, so I have a right to go to a sleepover too.”

It starts in childhood and, for many folks, continues until the day they die.

Resentment and self-righteousness, rooted in the heart, are the building blocks of a transactional modus operandi.

See, resentment can never be content with someone else’s contentment.

So if we find ourselves resenting someone else’s good fortune, or their receipt of something positive which they are entirely deserving of, then self-righteousness isn’t far behind. Because what resentment is screaming is this:

“How come I didn’t get the promotion?”

“How come I can’t go and buy things the way so and so does?”

“How come I can’t have the experiences other people have?

“How come I am not valued?”

Resentment doesn’t just rise up at the success of others, it also rushes in when we perceive, rightly or not, that we have been wronged or when we take offense.

“How come I am at the receiving end of this person’s actions?”

“How come I am limited, short-changed, backstabbed, undermined, misunderstood, passed over and thrown under the bus?”

Resentment then keeps score. It never forgives. It wants to retaliate.

Ironically, while scheming how to retaliate it is in fact already retaliating. Because it cannot bridge the distance between “my rights” and “your rights” in order to get to a place of understanding and right perspective. And this only breeds ill will, which itself is retaliation.

Trying to talk to someone bound up in their “rights” is nearly impossible.

They will stubbornly come back to “I” and how “I” feel. They have not developed the ability to see from another’s perspective.

And believe me, it isn’t a matter of how educated a person is. I have observed highly-certified people—trained in psychology, critical thinking and philosophy—ride the resentment train all the way to the end of the line.

And that’s because resentment is not a matter of the mind, it is a habit of the heart.

And until our hearts undergo a renaissance, we will always see the world as one-dimensional: the dimension of “me.” Thus, we will always live within the dimension of transactions.

Forgive me for a moment for taking a brief aside here to perhaps sound old and curmudgeony when I suggest that the doors to ever leaving that dimension are quickly closing due to Facebook, the very premise of which is “the perspective of me.”

Facebook in particular feeds the transactional life because the transactional life looks at everything from an exceedingly superficial level—what people are doing—and specifically, what they are doing in relation to me. 

So what people look and act like, where and how they live and the amount of money and success they’ve attained are all measured against what I look and act like, where and how I live, and my amount of success and money. Everything in life is interpreted in relation to me.

In a nutshell, the transactional life is a constant volley back and forth between what another person does, says or is and my kickback to that.

So while it may appear that it is only “all about me,” in actuality, we’ve made it “all about the other person from the perspective of me.”

This is the bondage of self. And, I might add, why we will never have peace on earth.

First Corinthians 13:5 tells us love “does not take into account a wrong suffered” (NASB); and “keeps no record of wrongs” (NIV). 

If loving our neighbor as our self is the second most important command after loving God (Matthew 22:39), then “love” clearly is not love if it is transactional.

The end of transactional living and loving can only come with Christ.

How do we know this?

“Jesus went out from there and came into His hometown; and his disciples followed Him. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the Synagogue; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, ‘Where did this man get these things, and what is this wisdom given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at Him.” Mark 6:1-3.

What is the transaction here?

In the minds of the self-obsessed locals, Jesus has one-upped them: “'Where did He get these things...is not this the carpenter'” that we have known all of our lives? How dare He come in here thinking He is so wise and able to do miracles!!"

Do you see their resentment, their self-righteousness?

And now for the transaction:

“You dare to come to us like this. We will react to this business of yours by becoming offended!” Because, in the hearts of the locals, one offense deserves another, and Jesus had offended. So they attempted to offend Him back by rejecting Him entirely (although, since this is Jesus, Jesus wasn’t offended and Jesus did not reject them in return). 

Why wasn’t Jesus offended?

Let’s find out:

“Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.’ And He could do no miracles there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief” (v. 4-6)

Isn’t that terrific? Jesus wasn’t offended by their rejection of Him because:

First of all, He understood the other people: He saw their context; He was able to be other-centric!

and

Second of all, He wondered! That is truly magnificent. He “wondered at their unbelief.”

I don’t know about you, but my first response would not be to thoughtfully place my finger on my chin and, gazing off into space, ponder a group of people’s outright visible taking offense at me! But that is what Jesus did.

And who, in the end, loses in this man-forced “transaction”?  (and I use quotes around that word because obviously Jesus did not complete the transaction because He Himself did not become offended).

The losers here are the people whose offense caused Jesus to “do no miracles there” except to heal a few sick people (who obviously had not taken offense at Him).

Jesus was not being transactional in his not doing many miracles there. He couldn’t do much there because the people would not let Him.

You can’t be spiritually healed if you do not want to be. We all know the feeling of finally leaving someone to them self if they don’t want us in their lives (again, keeping the door open, as Jesus Himself did, so that when and if they ever become willing, they will be lovingly received).

It was because of the condition of their hearts that Christ could not get through to the people. And if Christ, who is love itself, is not allowed to break through transactional thinking, nothing and nobody can.

It was a Christian brother who first pointed out the concept of transactional living to me. And as I tested this concept against Scripture, Christ showed me how accurate this brother was.

The more I began to see transactions going on all around me, the more I also saw Jesus Himself combating it in His own teaching.

Without Christ’s Spirit in us, we cannot expect to see this clearly. Without Christ’s Spirit in us we cannot expect our hearts to be cleansed. Without Christ, who Himself is love, we cannot come close to loving rightly and unselfishly and free of keeping score.

Without the regeneration of our very being, we cannot generate love and goodwill, because love and goodwill cannot flow from an impure heart; a heart polluted by keeping accounts.

Without Christ, all is self, and when all is self, life at its very core will always be transactional.

copyright Barb Harwood