“Did you hear Kanye West became a Christian?” I asked Dad and Mom last fall, soon after he released his album “Jesus Is King.”
“Who’s that?” Mom asked.
“Rap singer. Really famous. Married Kim Kardashian,” I said.
“I don’t know who those people are, but that’s wonderful if he became a Christian.”
Which reply proves to me something I’ve long suspected: no matter how famous you are, someone on the earth doesn’t know you. A large group of people, most likely.
Even if you are George Washington or Winston Churchill or Martin Luther King Jr, a large group of people knows nothing of your existence, and what’s more, they don’t care to know. Not only that, most of the people who have heard of you don’t care much about you, one way or another.
Don’t misunderstand me. Each of the individuals I mentioned impacted the world greatly in one way or another. But down at the level of individual hearts and characters, their lives very possibly didn’t touch more people than yours.
Think about the people who shaped you in your deepest places. After whose example did you pattern your lifestyle choices? Your relationships? Your religious beliefs? Most likely, it was someone near you, whose skin you brushed against, whose jokes you knew, whose breath you smelled.
We save the position of genuine love, respect, and trust—which comes with an ability to influence genuine change in another person’s life—for a very few people. We generally grant it only to people we know and of these, generally those closest to us. At this level, the level of individual heart and character, there is very little difference between the influential men I mentioned and you. Whether you have 10,000 Instagram followers or 2, your character and life choices are shaping and being shaped by a very few people.
These are the people who matter.
Wow – I love this. Thanks, Lucinda.
I tweeted this. God is no respecter of persons. And, Jesus still saves! Even famous people . . .
Thank you. Some years ago I met a man at Church. He received a full college scholarship to the University of Wisconsin for Medical Engineering. He was hoping to go to a Big college in California. The University of Wisconsin was the only school interested in him. He was an aboriginal person from Hawaii. A good student and famous by the locals. He won many awards in Mathematic competitions. During his interview In Hawaii he was given a map of the USA with outlines of the States. He was asked a simple question, put an “X “ in the area where you think Wisconsin is located. He put the X” in Wyoming. He then asked, “what in the world do people do in Wisconsin”? As you say outside of our little world very few people know our name.
Yes. A great illustration of that.
I agree. :)
I enjoyed this one so much, especially as someone who longs to be known but hates the spotlight. Our call is to faithfulness, despite where we are on the spectrum of “knownness.”
Thank you for these thoughts. I shared this with my teammates this morning. ;) I hope you don’t mind.
Not at all. I’m so glad you did.
Well said Lucinda!!!!!!