Fame

I recently became famous. I didn't star in a famous motion picture or pose for pictures for the cover of People Magazine, but still, I became famous. It happened when I went to exercise my right to vote last Tuesday. At the polling place I was handed my ballot and marker to carefully fill in the ovals and after dropping my ballot on the floor (probably drawing all the attention in the room to me), I finally got over to one of the empty booths to cast my vote. Across the room there was a guy with an expensive camera in his hand and he made his way over to my side of the room, obviously drawn by my clumsiness. After filling in my ovals, I then got in line to hand my ballot to an elderly lady who was feeding them into a huge machine. As I got close to the front of the line I heard her saying to each of the other voters, "Let's see if [the machine] will accept your ballot, sometimes it doesn't like them." Finally I come to the front of the line, having already drawn some unwanted attention due to the earlier ballot spillage, and I hand the lady my ballot. As she gives me her rehearsed greeting she feeds the ballot into the machine and wouldn't you know it, it came back out, rejected. I am sure that it was then that the photographer chose to raise his camera and snap a picture of my puzzled look as my ballot was denied by the machine. I am convinced that the rejection was due to feeder error because all it took was to refeed the ballot into the machine for its acceptance, but the picture had already been snapped, a moment frozen in time by the camera. As I started my exit, the photographer rushed over to introduce himself and get my name. The next morning I found my picture in the paper with that puzzled look on my face. Fame. Don't worry, I won't let it go to my head.

Last night I taught the youth about the value of the things that God chooses to give us, instead of the value of the things that we think we want. We all made lists of things that we wanted, our all-time want list. When I looked at those lists, much of what I found on their lists, as well as mine, seemed to say, "Give me fame, give me money, give me more stuff." And God looks at those lists and He tells us we don't need those things. In fact, He tells us that we are missing out on the things or experiences that He has planned for us because we are too busy asking for things that we don't really want. We can't really want them because they will never satisfy our hunger. God is trying to tell us that our hunger is fed through our relationship with him. The things that He will give us, things that we really want because they satisfy our hunger, will help us to have a closer and better relationship with him. God wants to give and He wants us to ask. He doesn't sit up in heaven and gleefully deny all of my prayer requests. He is sitting up there trying to show me the things I should be asking for. God challenges us to look at the lists of things we have made and ask if those things will help us maintain a closer relationship with him or if they will pull us away. Things like money, stuff, and my newfound fame aren't always what they are all cracked up to be. Fame might be as unsatisfying as a picture of you with a puzzled look on your face.