Last week I found myself doing something quite odd, something that I would take no pride in nor aspire to do. I watched an episode of American Idol. My mom is a fan of the show and Melissa’s interest was peaked so as the Magic were making a big comeback against the Heat on another channel, I was sitting in the TV room watching twenty-four people trying to become one of thirteen people that would advance to the next round. Its an interesting situation to be sure. American Idol has apparently been the number one show on TV for several years now (not that I helped it become as such) and there have been myriad other shows (Survivor, Last Comic Standing, The Apprentice, etc.) that have this survival mentality that I find quite fascinating.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been reading Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller. It is an interesting social commentary and in it he introduces an analysis called the lifeboat theory. In a nutshell, it says that people want to rank themselves in an order of whose the greatest. If a group of random people were in a lifeboat and somebody needed to be thrown off to save the rest, who would it be? This predicates the power play of survival. How that plays out in society is that we are constantly striving to be seen as important so as to receive the much needed security that comes from living in the lifeboat. For the society at large, I think the analysis is spot on.
When you look around popular culture in the United States, its quite clear that in every realm of society this hierarchy is formed. Donald Trump is important because he’s got a lot of money. Tyra Banks is safe in the lifeboat because she‘s beautiful. Natalie Portman‘s important because she won an Oscar. Lebron James is safe in the lifeboat because he plays basketball well (not as good as Kobe though). Jerry Brown is important because he’s a powerful politician. You get the idea.
And while such people sometimes set the culture’s pace, this isn’t just about those famous people out there. You find this mentality anywhere you find a group of people. Think about the popularity contest that is junior high and high school. Beyond that you can see the power play in full effect amongst college coeds that are vying for position as the real world approaches. The same mentality translates to the office, the business and yes, even the church. Its not hard to see where a guy like Charles Darwin would come up with a theory like survival of the fittest, when we’ve been playing this odd ranking game for so long. Its active in ways in the animal kingdom and when we choose to not allow God to define our identity and worth, it happens in our lives as well.
Undoubtedly, this absurd, yet common, system has its perks. In the high stakes game of popularity and material gain, there can be a sense of adventure, albeit a false one. As humans, its in our DNA to want to live for an adventure bigger than ourselves. The problem is that we trade in our true callings in Christ for the pseudo-risk we find in the lifeboat. We can get highs of feeling important as we score the game-winning shot, make a successful business deal or in my case, get more than two comments on a blog. Yet such things don’t remotely compare from the joy one receives from advancing God’s Kingdom in the unique way in which He called them.
An ironic contrast to this game that is being played out is the fact that many in this world really are in a fight for survival - like the over one million people that die from malaria every year or the fifteen million children that starve to death. From my experience living in a developing country, I’ve found that people aren’t all that different. They are just as sinful in the same ways that Americans can be sinful and these power plays happen there as well. However, the backdrop is different in that many of their countrymen are dying from curable diseases and ailments. As members of a Kingdom without borders, we are to see these people as our countrymen as well. Specifically that these are people we are called to help. To not only feed them and save them from a physical death, but to share with them the good news and the love that will transform their lives.
The beautiful thing about following God is that He is the one that sets up the rule to the game. We are no longer bound by the cruel and unjust rules that are arbitrarily set-up in the lifeboat game. But rather the loving and kind Lord calls us into a whole other identity and a true reality. In that reality we are just as loved and just as important as the next person. And that love is not a miniscule love, but rather a big infinite love that is bestowed upon us from the only One that matters. He then calls us to be ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-19) and we pass along the freedom that has been extended to us. That is the beauty of the gospel and for this we give praise.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been reading Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller. It is an interesting social commentary and in it he introduces an analysis called the lifeboat theory. In a nutshell, it says that people want to rank themselves in an order of whose the greatest. If a group of random people were in a lifeboat and somebody needed to be thrown off to save the rest, who would it be? This predicates the power play of survival. How that plays out in society is that we are constantly striving to be seen as important so as to receive the much needed security that comes from living in the lifeboat. For the society at large, I think the analysis is spot on.
When you look around popular culture in the United States, its quite clear that in every realm of society this hierarchy is formed. Donald Trump is important because he’s got a lot of money. Tyra Banks is safe in the lifeboat because she‘s beautiful. Natalie Portman‘s important because she won an Oscar. Lebron James is safe in the lifeboat because he plays basketball well (not as good as Kobe though). Jerry Brown is important because he’s a powerful politician. You get the idea.
And while such people sometimes set the culture’s pace, this isn’t just about those famous people out there. You find this mentality anywhere you find a group of people. Think about the popularity contest that is junior high and high school. Beyond that you can see the power play in full effect amongst college coeds that are vying for position as the real world approaches. The same mentality translates to the office, the business and yes, even the church. Its not hard to see where a guy like Charles Darwin would come up with a theory like survival of the fittest, when we’ve been playing this odd ranking game for so long. Its active in ways in the animal kingdom and when we choose to not allow God to define our identity and worth, it happens in our lives as well.
Undoubtedly, this absurd, yet common, system has its perks. In the high stakes game of popularity and material gain, there can be a sense of adventure, albeit a false one. As humans, its in our DNA to want to live for an adventure bigger than ourselves. The problem is that we trade in our true callings in Christ for the pseudo-risk we find in the lifeboat. We can get highs of feeling important as we score the game-winning shot, make a successful business deal or in my case, get more than two comments on a blog. Yet such things don’t remotely compare from the joy one receives from advancing God’s Kingdom in the unique way in which He called them.
An ironic contrast to this game that is being played out is the fact that many in this world really are in a fight for survival - like the over one million people that die from malaria every year or the fifteen million children that starve to death. From my experience living in a developing country, I’ve found that people aren’t all that different. They are just as sinful in the same ways that Americans can be sinful and these power plays happen there as well. However, the backdrop is different in that many of their countrymen are dying from curable diseases and ailments. As members of a Kingdom without borders, we are to see these people as our countrymen as well. Specifically that these are people we are called to help. To not only feed them and save them from a physical death, but to share with them the good news and the love that will transform their lives.
The beautiful thing about following God is that He is the one that sets up the rule to the game. We are no longer bound by the cruel and unjust rules that are arbitrarily set-up in the lifeboat game. But rather the loving and kind Lord calls us into a whole other identity and a true reality. In that reality we are just as loved and just as important as the next person. And that love is not a miniscule love, but rather a big infinite love that is bestowed upon us from the only One that matters. He then calls us to be ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-19) and we pass along the freedom that has been extended to us. That is the beauty of the gospel and for this we give praise.
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