the rambling missionary

by erika haveman

I was watching the Oscars this year and an ad popped on about doing something with your life.  Being somebody.  Achieving a thing that will force the world to remember your name.  This is the message of our culture, and whether you believe it or not, you are believing it.  I know I believe it.  I believe that if I blog enough I’ll get enough followers and enough likes and people will yell my name and I’ll have all of the fame and glory that will ensure I feel appreciated, known, understood.  People will know me therefore I have won at life.

As I folded my laundry the day after the Oscars I realized something: I won’t be somebody to be remembered.  And that’s okay.  I’ve actually got a greater calling than that.  I need to be someone who makes sure people know Jesus.

I heard a speaker say, “too often we woo people for Jesus when we need to be winning them for the kingdom.”  Am I wooing people with a good message?  If I am, I’m making my message about me.  I need to be making the message God has given me to share point to Him, not to me.  So how can I do something about all of this?  I think there’s a 2 step process that sounds simple, and is simple, but it takes intentionality as opposed to passivity.  You have to do a little fighting.

1. Stop trying to be somebody.
   Seriously.  Don’t stop posting on instagram, but also don’t care how many likes you get.  I’ll admit when I first go instagram I was disappointed when I would get just 1 like.  That would happen.  I also got instagram when it first came out in the stone age, and may have been the first person at my school to get Facebook.  Regardless, I really would get upset and feel “less than” when I saw friends getting more likes than me.  But why should this matter?  Like actually, why?  Because culture tells me that I am somebody worth noticing, and the measurement of being noticed is by how many insta-likes I have.  I need to stop trying to be somebody.  Will this make me feel isolated?  Probably.  Will I feel pain?  Most likely.  Should I numb my hurt with destructive behaviour?  Obviously.  Okay, no, the last answer is a lie.  But I say “obviously” because so often I’ve observed that when we feel hurt we do try to escape it somehow, and we passively let ourselves slip into something more harmful than the pain we’ve already felt.  Anxiety and depression are at higher rates than they have ever been (click here for just one article about teenagers + anxiety).  I think it’s because we try so hard to be somebody, then are let down when culture tells us (ie. not enough insta-likes) there’s someone else out there doing better than us at the thing we want to be known for.  We look at ourselves too much, and while we would never want to admit this we have to start being honest with where we really at.  Revelation starts with truth, and truth does come from Jesus but it also comes with honesty from our own hearts.  That honesty shouldn’t be, “I’m never going to be known as somebody,” it should be “I’m trying so hard to be known as somebody.”  When we admit this we’re ready for step 2.
2. Start trying to be Jesus.
   When I say, “I’m trying to be known as somebody,” I’m looking to others for my definition, encouragement, hope, affirmation.  While I am firm believer that God has given us each other for relationship and all the good things, if I don’t believe that God knows me and calls me His own then I will forever be empty from those I’m in relationship with.  I had a moment while watching the Oscars when I was struck with the fact that a lot of these people in fancy dresses and designer tuxedo’s will go home alone, stare up at their ceilings and wonder why they didn’t win.  They’ll feel isolated, lonely.  They’ll probably have posted on instagram about how great the night was, how beautiful they felt, and they’ll see the thousands or millions of likes on their photos.  But they’ll probably feel empty inside – just like we often do.  They will feel empty because they don’t have Jesus.  When I start trying to be Jesus I’m taking the pressure off of myself to be someone unique that “the world needs.”  The world doesn’t need another individual.  It needs Jesus.  Every Veggietales movie used to tell me, “God made you special and He loves you very much!”  There is truth to this statement, but I don’t think it means, “God made you to be someone different so the world can notice you, and then He loves you very much.”  He is the only one that matters, the only one who you should be like, and He created you to be able to accomplish this.  When your eyes are on Him, they are not on yourself, and suddenly you realize that you don’t need to be somebody.  You don’t need to care about the insta-likes.  You don’t need the attention.  You don’t need to have pink hair or designer clothes or the perfect makeup or the toned bikini body or the shiniest car.  I say all of those things because I have literally wanted all of those, or have had all of those, in the hopes that I would get more noticed.  I don’t need to be somebody.  I need to try to be Jesus.

So take heart.  The battle is in front of you.   Being Jesus requires you to live completely opposite of the way our culture demands.  Stop listening to the commercials – they are just trying to sell you things and make money.  They don’t care about you when you feel isolated or have anxiety.  Jesus does, and He just calls you to be like Him.  Being like Him doesn’t promise a stress free life, but it gives you the perspective that life is always worth living and His “like” is eternal and the only one that matters.