I have a personal policy not to use this weblog as a rant outlet, but rather to lift up the body of Christ and those who are searching for healing in general. For a month now, I have had a rant brewing and I could not allow myself to post my thoughts until I could turn it into something constructive, useful, and edifying. So here it goes....
At the end of every year, all the tabloids are riddled like shotgun spray with who they think were the most important people of the year. They search high and low and come up with the most obvious famous faces and say that those people had the biggest impact, the biggest story, broke the most records, fathered the most children out of wedlock, committed the most heinous crime, made the nastiest smear through the highest courts, and the list goes on. If there were a church listed in the seven churches in Revelations 2 for such a people, this one would surely fit into some level of Dante's Inferno.
But most people don't see it this way. In fact, it is because so many people love these juicy tabloids that they are still in business. Why is that!? It is because people, including some of you readers, don't like their life. They think their life is boring, meaningless, pointless, not nearly as eventful as the private lives of these public people must be. Or their life is anything but boring, meaningless, pointless, and uneventful. In fact, it may be downright chaotic and miserable, full of one daily crises after another and they just want to escape. Either way, it's a temporary fix to a much bigger problem. People want to feel successful. People want to associate with these people who seem to have it all together. The more juicy the information you have on someone to take to your next gossip session, the more popular you will be as your clique thinks you are something special for knowing the latest scoop. You want to be an insider because "insiders" are your idea of success.
And that's not even my real rant. The real rant is that I know of some REAL life stories that will rip your heart to the core. But no one wants to hear about those. In all the year-end stories of 2011, I never once heard (maybe you did) about all the tornado victims, the earthquake victims, the tsunami victims, the cancer victims, the orphaned children right here in America, the families of murder victims, the thousands of casualties of war, or the underground Christians of communist China which happens to be an economic superpower rising on the backs of slave labor and record smashing abortion rates, or the lives sacrificed at the Japanese nuclear plant, or the victims forever changed because a young man was sending his 12th text message while driving his father's truck. What about those lives?
I didn't see these make the headlines of most noble or honorable people. Yet, this is the stuff life is made of. This is the stuff God sent prophets to warn us about, and his own Son said to watch for these things and know that each day draws us one day closer to his return. I know that I just lost somebody when I injected Christ into the equation just now. That's the switch you were programmed with when you entered the Matrix, right? Wrong.
When I first accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, I was working with the director of a mentoring program. I wanted to flee my old life and old self, but I had no idea how to do that because I didn't know who I was or what a different life looked like. When I looked at my friend, I found myself wanting to be like her. She was the ideal person in my mind -- helping others, reaching out to those in need or crisis, loving on at-risk kids, meeting people in their darkest times and greatest needs, feeding and clothing the poor, while she had a picture-perfect family with Godly children. It's no wonder we love to read about people like this woman. It's who we want to be ourselves, so we get as close to them as we can, perhaps even smoother these people, and hope others will think we are just like them. Maybe if we hang out with the popular people we will become one of the popular people. If we dress like them or perform the same acts as them, we will become one of them. We grieve for the loss of someone famous because the closer we are to someone, the more we feel the weight of grief; therefore we must have known them well because we go so far as to feel this perceived weight.
Now, I'd like to apologize at this point if what I have said sounds cynical in any way. It really is a true phenomenon that we can choose to admit or deny its existence. Either way, it happens. I've confessed my case in point just to get your introspection started.
Moving on to what should be the climax of this post. I was talking with a new believer who was contemplating this thing we call "free will." He was sorting through the possibility that maybe we don't have as much free will as we think we do because the God we serve knows everything past, present and future. And doesn't God get his way with people anyway, despite our free will? I understand it best this way: When I choose to follow Christ, I choose to follow HIS will and NOT my own. What's so wrong with God getting his way and me not getting my way? Isn't that how it's supposed to be??? There can only be one master.
Instead of borrowing someone else's fame or success by affiliating with their reputation and that which makes them successful, what if we solely endeavored to put our hope and success in Christ? Think about it. I wanted to change my life so I planned to be just like my friend and imitate her until we were one and the same person. I would be a perfect successor to her position when her retirement came. But what changed that for me? My salvation. When God spoke to my heart and said, "What's wrong with being like ME? Imitate me and my thoughts and actions and humanitarian aid and my counsel and hope and compassion, and thereby become like me so that those who see your good works will glorify ME." He's GOD, folks! He has the right to say these things. No one else has that privilege.
I had the ultimate example of who I wanted to be standing right in front of me. It wasn't a shining example in my community, but Christ Himself. I am called to emulate HIM. It's not the faces that smudge in ink on the newsprint at the end of the year, but the one who has stood the test of time and beyond. Study the pictures of Christ painted in the Old Testament. See his fulfillment lived out in the New Testament. Listen carefully to his words and effectiveness and learn at the feet of Jesus. The Proverbs instruct on how to seek God's wisdom and he promises to give it freely to those who diligently seek it. Seek the Lord. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind. Why is love the greatest command? Because God is (agape) Love. And love is the tie that binds us to this world and the next. Where is the love in the tabloids? The love is in these real life situations that call us to repentance and relationship and the realization that we are all in this boat together. No divorce from each other or divorce from human suffering of any kind can separate us from the love of God or our obligation to show his love to others.
This post is really a call to be successful. Find your success by associating with Jesus. Take your relationship to a new level. Go ahead and tie the knot, if you will! No one is making you do something you don't want to do. You have the free will to surrender your will to do his will that is so much better than your own. You may not gain fame and fortune in this life or get your name and face smudged in ink, but when your heavenly Father looks at you, he will see the covering of the blood of Christ and say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
