Purpose

Famous & Faithful

As I’ve previously written, Nicole Richie once quipped that it was only in America that you could become famous for being famous. Fame – once the province of actors and athletes (and previously artists and scientists) – has come to the masses. And it’s not just in America! A study released last year showed that 54% of 16 year-olds in the United Kingdom indicated that their future career plans were to “become a celebrity.” Perhaps even more disturbing, 20% of these teens indicated that they would accomplish this goal by being a contestant on a reality show.

 

An infatuation with fame wasn’t always so defining. Teddy Roosevelt once stated that it was “better to be faithful than famous” and many would agree that he had the equation right. After all, few care if their friends are famous when they find themselves in need. Similarly in a good marriage it’s our spouse’s faithfulness and not their renown that is the focus of our concern. Faithfulness is often what distinguishes a good employee from bad, a reliable friend from an acquaintance, and a celebrated spouse from a despised one. Unlike fame, there seems to be a dearth of faithfulness in our culture.

 

The irony for the Christian is that God desires faithfulness and fame. Faithfulness in this life, and fame in the next.  And it’s our faithfulness in this life that secures our fame in the next.

 

This is a hard equation to master. After all, we tend to think that as long as we aren’t doing anything “bad” we’re doing what God wants. God, however, doesn’t just call us to “not do bad,” He calls us to do His will. It’s in doing His will, in doing the best things as opposed to just the good ones, that acclaim in Heaven is achieved. Additionally, the  greater our eternal fame, the more crowns we have to lay at His feet. In other words, the more that we are able to honor Him – for eternity.

D.L. Moody, when hearing the news of his granddaughter’s birth, telegraphed back, “May she become famous in the kingdom of Heaven. [That] is the prayer of her grandfather!” That should be the prayers for not only our progeny, but for ourselves as well. We should pray that we would faithfully live out God’s calling in this life, that we would obey His Word, love His children, and do His bidding, so that in the next life, our renown would be great. Not for our own sake, but for the sake of His glory, and His eternal fame.

 

Who do you know that lived faithfully in this life in order to achieve fame in God’s kingdom?

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Being Content

Small Stuff

Sometimes it seems like its the details of life that will be our undoing – the cell phone that refuses to work, the piece of paper that can’t be found, or the dog that can’t seem to learn his lesson. We know that these things won’t matter in 100 years, and yet they can be the very things that frustrate us, and cause us angst. We handle the crisis well because we know that there are people counting on us to do so – but the small stuff, that can cause us to lose our cool.

Yet we know, as the title of a famous book implores us, that we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff. We shouldn’t get wrapped up in the minutia of life because they are just a part of living in a fallen world. As Christians, we know that these aren’t things that will matter in eternity (although our response might) so we shouldn’t let them consume our thoughts. We know all this, yet still it’s hard.

However, I’ve realized that there’s another reason that we don’t have to be concerned with the small stuff – we serve a God who is. After all, He is the one that is concerned with the number of hairs on our heads, and whether a sparrow falls. He cares to make sure that even the lilies are adorned in splendor. He’s taking care even of the things that we disregard – how much more so will He take care of things that capture our attention?

Sometimes it’s seems like its easier to trust God for the big things. “That’s His domain”, we fool ourselves into thinking, and we somehow think that the details are ours. However, experience quickly teaches us that we are wrong. We can’t even keep a hair from falling out of our heads, how will handle all the other details that invade our lives? The simple answer is that we can’t. But we can follow God, and trust that just like with the big things, He will take care of the details.

It’s hard to not focus on the minutia of life. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in the details. But we can have confidence that these don’t need to be the centrality of our concern because we serve a God who has the small stuff, as well as the big picture, under His watchful care.

What do you think?  Why do we focus on the small stuff? How have you learned to trust these things to the Master’s care?

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