LOL: Our Inflated Sense of Importance

Last updated on: October 9, 2015 at 9:10 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

LOL: Our Inflated Sense of Importance 2015-10-09T21:10:21-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Speaker of the House

Evidently the House is in chaos, because the GOP cannot, yet, pick a speaker. There may be people worried about this possibility, but I have yet to meet one. Christians are being martyred in Syria. We are aborting our future and have proclaimed vice virtue. Our elites oppress the poor while pretending to love them and politicians in both parties live in decadence on the debt foisted on our grandchildren.

I can live with no Speaker of the House. In fact, let’s engage in a fun game. Name Speakers of the House and then realize how few you know. I got to twenty or so and then petered out. At some point, I got to naming Speakers whose names I knew, but whose accomplishment were long forgotten. I know Joe Cannon was powerful, but I cannot for the life of me recall what he did.

Joe Cannon is gone and forgotten unless he bothered to love Jesus more than his job.

And this brings me to an important realization, one that applies to me and might to you. We think, for some reason, we are very, very important when in fact we are not very important. Our first world problems (today I needed a new tire for my car) threaten us, because who is the Cosmos to fail us? We are the heroes of own little movies and so the problem of evil looms larger for us than it did for any other generation. Little gods in our own minds, we cannot understand how the Internet router could possibly fail us.

I do not matter.

I have been lucky in most of the leaders I have met. . . I will name none to avoid name dropping . . .most of them have loved others more than self. I have met self-inflated hucksters who cared more that they got the right color Sharpie to sign books on “their” book tour, than helping the people who were at their event. I have known self-sacrificing pastors like George Osborne of New York, smarter than almost anyone I have known, who sacrifice everything for the Gospel. But I have also known pastors who dialogue with themselves in the pulpit. “Pastor Bob,” this narcissist says, “what is it like to be Pastor Bob?”

As I discuss questions with people with whom I disagree, the worst thing I could do is to think that what I say is about “winning.” Apologetics is not defeating an opponent, but finding what they think so one can love them better. If I love an atheist better by understanding what they are saying, then I might do something that matters. I will not matter, but if at any moment I can help a soul, then that will matter to God and He matters.

I am not important at all, blessed relief. I do not have to sit in a darkened room late at night swirling my drink, plotting triumph. I can fairly revel in insignificance and so love and serve the people of God. The Speaker of the House will not be in Heaven: only men and women created in the image of God. The Tsar will not be in Heaven: only Nicholas martyred in a basement in Siberia. The Emperor will not be in Heaven: only Constantine who ended persecution.

Let us all LOL. LOL at our presidential candidates. LOL at our celebrities. LOL at our “wise men.” LOL at a culture that forgets that in one thousand years we will be LOL.

And so be free of self-importance and striving so that we can be jolly and free. I laugh out loud at myself because God loves me and nothing I do matters to Him, but all I do that is loving and good is delightful to Him. Paradise is coming and if he loved Jesus, I will get to meet Joe Cannon, no longer burdened by being Speaker of the House and Important, and together we will have jollification because we can.

Hurrah!

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