One of my idols is the praise of men. Growing up I was driven with the desire to never be in trouble with anyone. I was the good kid at school, and I didn't speak up too much. I excelled at academics, especially at math, and I loved the attention that came with that. I did not brag too much, but I wanted to be the best, and I wanted to be seen as the best. I believe I achieved that. People in all my spheres of life thought I was incredibly smart. Perhaps it was not always conscious, but I really thirsted for that praise.
As I got older in elementary school and moved into the middle grades, this quest for the praise of man continued. While I was not necessarily cool, I at least learned how not to be uncool, and I maintained a balance in which I was friendly with everyone. I also had been gifted with above average athletic ability, and I did well at baseball and well enough at basketball and playground sports. In that way - being good at athletics - I avoided the charge of being too nerdy. I was the very smart, well-behaved kid who was good at sports and not too odd.
I took the SAT my freshman year in high school and did incredibly well, actually better than anyone in our school, including the seniors. After telling a few people - in a humble way, of course - how high my score was, news of it spread across a good percentage of the school. I was the "smartest kid in the school". Oh, how my fallen flesh loved that sort of praise!
Perhaps worst of all was that I carried that pride and thirst for the praise of man into my life at church. I competed at Bible Drills and Speaker's Tournament. I wanted to be on top with those things, too, and my competitive nature took me there. Being on top competitively, I thought I was a good Christian, better than most because I could look up books of the Bible faster. How dumb!
God broke me down the summer after my junior year. I was going through a study to prepare for a discipleship program with middle-schoolers, and I realized how little of the Bible I had actually read and how dry my prayer life was. My relationship with God was cold. In repentance I turned to God in tears and prayed Philippians 3:7 about everything I could think of. I have since walked in greater freedom from the need for the praise of man, but that indwelling sin still crops up every so often. It just comes up in more subtle ways now.
For instance, I now have a far greater desire to be a godly man. I want to be used in God's Kingdom, and I want to be pleasing to Jesus. There are times, though, when through prayerlessness I lose a sense of God's indwelling presence. In those times I still continue to do ministry because of the way I have ordered my life, and I still want my ministry to be successful. The problem is that my ministry done apart from God is ministry done for the praise of man. I have noticed that whenever I am done speaking or teaching at an event, one of my first tendencies is to seek people out and ask them how it was. My flesh yearns for a pat on the back, even when I am doing the right things.
This tendency to thirst for the praise of man breaks my heart because I can see it poisoning the purity and integrity of my relationships with people close to me. Nicole is amazing! I love her so much. I regret that in the beginning of our relationship - and most certainly this is not completely dead in me - I would let this sin creep in. I found that my own emotions, self-esteem, and even sometimes my physical wellness were tied to how Nicole was feeling and the moment-by-moment tug of how things were going. This was the first really serious relationship I had been in, and I thought my constant doting and checking up on her feelings were an expression of my affection and love. Some of it certainly was, but regrettably, as I came to realize, part of it was my fallen desire to be seen by my girlfriend as the perfect boyfriend. And the barometer of that, for me, was how she was feeling at any given moment. Too much of my love for her was a self-love, a love of her praise of me. And that is simply wicked. God, please forgive me and help me. Nicole, please forgive me, and thank you for staying with me through the messy process of me becoming more like Christ. Your grace and patience with me are amazing and help me to know God's love more.
What, we might ask, is the harm in delighting in the praises of men? I want to first say that praise is not all bad. I have, by the praises of my parents and others, been helped to pursue good things in life. I tend to think that we ought to graciously accept praise and not seek constantly to tell others how bad we are at everything. I have heard, and regrettably I cannot remember from where, that humility is not thinking less of yourself (necessarily), but rather, thinking of yourself less. In this way of thinking, self-pity can actually be a form of pride, just as much as self-righteousness because the self has been kept at the center of its universe. And in some ways this form of pride is worse because self-pity nearly always thinks itself humble.
I think it is okay to accept praise from man sometimes, but the only right way to do it is with a heart that yearns far more for the praise of God. In a heart set aright, all the praises of man feel like feathers in a scale compared to the hefty anchor of God's gracious love.
Jesus explains that, "everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:28) He also says that anger in our hearts is like murder. He is diagnosing our hearts and exposing the true nature of what we believe may be harmless tendencies. As long as I keep it to myself it doesn't matter, right? What would it look like if this lust for the praise of man was left unchecked and allowed to come to fruition or consummation? I think it would look like me exalted on a throne with people all around worshipping me because of my self-evident greatness. That is where my heart, through its longing for the praise of man, wants to go. It would have me take God's place, and that is why it is so sinful. God alone is God.
I write all of that as an exceedingly long preface to this: I must be very careful with this blog. I am enjoying the writing so very much. It is for me a sort of journal on all the things I care most deeply about, and it is in a place that allows it to be useful to others. I have been blessed by words of encouragement from multiple people who have found help from one or more of these entries. All glory be to God! That is so awesome, and I am so thankful to God to be used at all. My plan is to continue writing consistently for all the reasons listed in my very first entry.
My problem, I have noticed, is that my blog - and not really the writing of it - has become too big in my life. It has become a channel for my tendency to seek the praise of men. I am quick to bring it up in conversation with people who know about it. My flesh really wants you to tell me how good of a writer I am. The worst part is that there is a "Stats" tab, and it lets me know how many people have looked at my blog at different times. I check that tab now habitually, like I check my email and facebook. Just as my sense of worth as a boyfriend has been, at times, tied intimately to the moment-by-moment emotional well-being of Nicole, my sense of usefulness in ministry has become tied unhealthily to a jagged line graph representing my blog's views. (That might be slightly hyperbolic, but not completely off the mark. And that certainly is not to say that Nicole's emotions resemble a jagged line graph! It is only to say that I sinfully attach my sense of worth to the wrong things sometimes.) Of course, the days with the highest number of views are the days when I have advertised my blog most heavily on facebook, so I have become an expert at making this self-centered calculation: how often and on how many people's walls can I post a link to my blog in order to maximize the number of views and minimize how desperate I look? (Again, that's probably hyperbolic, but in the spirit of honesty, I do feel this happening in my heart.)
Having just given a message to Grove Level's youth on the need to kill the deeds of the body by the Spirit in order to live, I know that I must not disregard the dangers to my soul from the sins just outlined. There are some steps I plan to take that I would like to share with you. My hope for deliverance from the love of man's praise most certainly does not lie within these steps but within God. I will probably write an entry soon on the tension between God's responsibility and our responsibility in the killing of our sin, so I will leave this tension for now and simply tell you what I plan to do.
1) I plan to quit the "Stats" tab cold turkey for at least a couple of months. Why in the world should I waste valuable time each day checking this thing?
2) I plan to quit advertising my blog for a similar length of time. Enough people know about it now. I just need to write it. If advertising is to happen, it will be because you, dear readers, have shared it with someone.
3) I plan to temporarily quit facebook. It has become a time-waster for me. Also, I anticipate wanting to check facebook to see if any of you, as a result of this post, have done any advertising for me. (The human heart is wicked, and the longer I spend with Jesus, the more I know it. Thank God for grace!) It will probably be a few days before I quit facebook, though, because I am waiting for a couple of responses to messages I have sent.
Friends, thank you for bearing with me. I leave you now with some Scripture...
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24)
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. (Philippians 3:7)
My problem, I have noticed, is that my blog - and not really the writing of it - has become too big in my life. It has become a channel for my tendency to seek the praise of men. I am quick to bring it up in conversation with people who know about it. My flesh really wants you to tell me how good of a writer I am. The worst part is that there is a "Stats" tab, and it lets me know how many people have looked at my blog at different times. I check that tab now habitually, like I check my email and facebook. Just as my sense of worth as a boyfriend has been, at times, tied intimately to the moment-by-moment emotional well-being of Nicole, my sense of usefulness in ministry has become tied unhealthily to a jagged line graph representing my blog's views. (That might be slightly hyperbolic, but not completely off the mark. And that certainly is not to say that Nicole's emotions resemble a jagged line graph! It is only to say that I sinfully attach my sense of worth to the wrong things sometimes.) Of course, the days with the highest number of views are the days when I have advertised my blog most heavily on facebook, so I have become an expert at making this self-centered calculation: how often and on how many people's walls can I post a link to my blog in order to maximize the number of views and minimize how desperate I look? (Again, that's probably hyperbolic, but in the spirit of honesty, I do feel this happening in my heart.)
Having just given a message to Grove Level's youth on the need to kill the deeds of the body by the Spirit in order to live, I know that I must not disregard the dangers to my soul from the sins just outlined. There are some steps I plan to take that I would like to share with you. My hope for deliverance from the love of man's praise most certainly does not lie within these steps but within God. I will probably write an entry soon on the tension between God's responsibility and our responsibility in the killing of our sin, so I will leave this tension for now and simply tell you what I plan to do.
1) I plan to quit the "Stats" tab cold turkey for at least a couple of months. Why in the world should I waste valuable time each day checking this thing?
2) I plan to quit advertising my blog for a similar length of time. Enough people know about it now. I just need to write it. If advertising is to happen, it will be because you, dear readers, have shared it with someone.
3) I plan to temporarily quit facebook. It has become a time-waster for me. Also, I anticipate wanting to check facebook to see if any of you, as a result of this post, have done any advertising for me. (The human heart is wicked, and the longer I spend with Jesus, the more I know it. Thank God for grace!) It will probably be a few days before I quit facebook, though, because I am waiting for a couple of responses to messages I have sent.
Friends, thank you for bearing with me. I leave you now with some Scripture...
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24)
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. (Philippians 3:7)
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