We tend to regard people who dare to appear in front of the crowd as being confident whilst those who dare not as not confident. However, I will say both are equally not confident if those who love to be around people are motivated by their narcissistic-selves whereas those who dare not appear in the crowd are envious of those who dare. Human beings have inherent needs to be accepted and are perpetually seeking recognition. Deep loneliness and insecurities create deep longings to be accepted. As a matter of fact, this is the consequence of alienation and estrangement after the Fall. Frankly speaking, we do not want to live our lives on the ground. We seek to be raised, clapped, praised and glorified on a stage. Life is performance-oriented. What can you perform? What can you “show off”? Do you have something special to present in order to receive glory? Life becomes a pursuit of self-aggrandizement. Why success is much sought after? It is due to the ‘control mechanism” within the insecure people. We seek to control and success is a form of a false sense of feeling in control.
Let us look at the life of Jesus Christ. Christ lived a life on earth as the prototype of human being. Christ is a great failure if we judge His life on earth using the common worldview as perimeter on the definition of success. He seemed to live a life of failure, humiliation and shame. He didn’t climb the ladder of success or the stage of worldly glory. He was indeed being raised but He was raised on a wooden cross. What a shame and humiliation! However, He was glorified by the Father. What if we receive praises, recognition and acceptance and we call it “success” whereas we are rejected and ashamed when we face our eternal LORD? We may want to question, “Is recognition, promise and acceptance that we receive sincere?” Are you just a “product” that people seek to make use of because of your “usefulness” to them? In other words we are just products with expiry dates. Once we are expired we are no longer important nor cherished. We become “junk” that will be cast off.
Our society tends to thingtify or dehumanize the human persons. Jesus’s life has shown us an alternative path for us to take for Jesus “became sin” to free us from our sin (Romans 8:3 ff.). In other words, God is always sewing garments to cover up our immense and intense sense of unworthiness. “Instead he preaches a life of simplicity and nonviolence that is simply outside the system of power, money and control. More than directly fighting the system, he ignores it and builds an alternative worldview where power, prestige and possessions are not sought or even admired.” (Richard Rohr).
Our self-important is not determined by our performance but by our identity as “God’s friends, God’s children, God’s co-workers”. We are not performing but we are “working”. In this modern age, people are not really working but are mainly performing. Honor from men is temporary but honor from the LORD is eternal and very rewarding. Our Heavenly Father will “honor those who serve Christ. “Our lives are hidden with Christ is God” (Colossians). People with false sense of self-fulfillment will eventually realize that their ladders are on the wrong side of the wall. It will be a great “shock” for many people when they have to face the LORD. When we live lives that are hidden in Christ, we no longer need to seek acceptance nor recognition from the crowd for we have been accepted by Him who receives us as His beloved children.
