The first pep rally of my senior year I walked in surrounded with a group of my girlfriends. We were talking and giggling as girls tend to do when an unpopular, socially awkward girl started yelling my name.
"Caroline!! Hey!!! I missed you this summer! Give me a hug!!!"
My friends giggled mockingly. I cringed. We were just acquaintances, so I had no idea why she was fussing over me. But I gave her a hug anyway and gave her a small "How are you?", quickly jumping back to my group of friends and hoping to not be associated with her. But at that moment another person started yelling my name. It was a friend of mine who was pretty, well-liked and also the head cheerleader. I ran over to her and started freaking out. "Ahhhh I've missed you! How was your summer? I love your haircut..I need bangs like yours!" Soon the music began, and I ran to try to get a good seat in the senior side of the gym.
At that moment, it wasn't about treating all people like they were made by God and worthy of love. It was about paying attention to not only the person I liked the most, but also the person who could make me look the prettiest and most popular-the cheerleader. The uncool girl made me look bad, so I dreaded saying hi to her. Yep, I was exalting me.
This time I'm a senior at Florida State University, and there aren't really any pep rallies. But there is another tool I use to try to exalt myself to me and the world...Facebook. It's supposed to be just a web site where you can keep in touch with people easier. But I instead use it as my identity. If you see my cover photo of me in rural Peru with my high school English students, maybe you'll think I'm some type of world traveler. When you see my profile picture of my boyfriend and I with our friends from Taiwan, I hope you'll think I'm cool and diverse because most of my friends aren't American. I list every job I've ever had to prove I’m well –rounded because I've worked at an all-girls' summer camp, inner city mission, tutoring center, etc. But most of all, I’m proud of my 1,000+ friends that signify my popularity.
I also like to keep a mental list of my accomplishments and compare them to the accomplishments of other people. If mine is “cooler” than theirs, then I win and I see myself as better than they are. But if theirs is cooler, I lose and I always try to prove to myself why I’m better than they are. This covers everyone from my boyfriend’s ex’s to the girl I talk to in Spanish linguistics.
But such judgments hold me constantly wanting to succeed so I can give
myself more value. When I’m constantly trying to make sure that I have value, I’m
giving others less value in comparison.
I see people as one of three things-worse than me, equal to me, or
better than me instead of how God sees them-they are all worth dying for.
In the Gospel of John, John writes about his personal encounters while with Jesus. But in his letter, he doesn't call himself "I" or even "John". The only name he gives himself is “the one who Jesus loved.” Really, that was all that mattered. Your
titles don’t matter. Do you really think that a year from now anyone will care
or remember that I was the vice-president of Friends of Internationals when I
was at FSU or that I was voted Class Friendliest in high school? Do you think
that in eternity it matters how many Facebook friends I had, how many countries
that I have traveled to, or how many international students knew my name when I
walked down Woodward Avenue? But will matter is that Jesus loves me. And He
just doesn’t love me. He loved that girl I was too good to talk to at the pep
rally, all of Andy’s ex girlfriends, and the girl in class who I thought I was
cooler than just because I speak Spanish faster than she does.
My life needs to
be about making people know that Jesus loves them, no about how awesome
I am. But as far as I see it, I don’t exalt God. I exalt me.
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