Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously
* Bryan Patterson
* From: Sunday Herald Sun
* Sun Oct 04 00:00:00 EST 2009 Sun Oct 04 00:00:00 EST 2009
ON the eve of the 2005 Palestinian election, a TV message was delivered to the region by the actor best known for his role in Pretty Woman.
"Hi, I'm Richard Gere and I'm speaking for the entire world," the star said.
The vanity of the moment was matched only by its cluelessness.
Gere thinks he can speak for the world because he is a celebrity.
As the writer Samuel Butler said, vanity is the quicksand of reason.
Joan Rivers said she once attended a ?Botox Birthday party? at which several Beverly Hills socialites celebrated a friend?s birthday by having Botox injected into the muscles in their foreheads and around their eyes to remove crow?s feet and squint lines.
The party went well until the cake was brought in - no one could blow out the candles.
And poor deluded Michael Jackson commissioned a portrait for $300,000. It depicted George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, the Mona Lisa, ET and Jackson - all wearing sunglasses and a white sequined glove.
Nothing is so commonplace as the wish to be considered remarkable.
King Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, said there was nothing new under the sun. It was all vanity, he said. An amplification of our hunger to live up to impossible social ideals.
It is vanity that tells us the lie that one day there will be no wars because our hearts and minds will naturally evolve into peace. It is vanity that tells us that medical science eventually will allow us to live forever. It is vanity to wish for long life and to care little about a well-spent life.
More than that, vanity is expecting God to be subservient to our rules and demands.
Yet we humans cannot call even a blade of grass into existence.
Humility is allowing ourselves to be earthed in the truth that lets God be God.
Evangelist Peter Marshall said we had to get rid of the idea that the purpose of life was to enjoy ourselves - to have a good time, to be happy, to make money and to live in ease and comfort. That was not what life is all about.
You were put here for a purpose not related to superficial pleasures. No one owed you a living - not your parents, not your government, not life itself. You did not have a right to happiness. You had a right to nothing.
"I believe God wants us to be happy, but it is not a matter of our right, but of his love and mercy," Marshall said.
Writer David P. Gushee said he became depressed when he realised that some day he would die and, within a few years after his death, only a handful of people would know or care that he was ever here. And there was nothing he could do about it.
"I began to realise that much of what has occupied me has been an attempt to defeat insignificance, anonymity and death," Gushee said.
"If I work hard enough, I can live forever, I thought. I can be among the few who cheat death of its victory by gaining a reputation that outlives them. I now see this is unlikely. I will not become another C.S. Lewis or Augustine. Instead, I'll be a college professor. I will write a few books. But these efforts will not defeat death nor oblivion. I am powerless against them. The prospect is more than frustrating: it is terrifying."
Gushee recovered from depression when he realised this quest for immortality and lasting significance reflected the fact that God had put eternity in the human heart.
I want to live forever. So does almost everyone else. Yet none of us has the power to win our immortality. The Christian hope consists entirely in the promise of something that none of us can provide for ourselves. Eternal life comes only as a gift. If we try too hard to earn it, we can destroy ourselves.
We'll all make mistakes on this spiritual journey. But we are dealing with a loving and forgiving God. So take the journey seriously, but let's not take ourselves too seriously.
