Daily Devotional

 Like many of my youthful peers, I had my share of visions of grandeur. I grew up wanting to become a famous this or a world-renowned that. Later in life, I met some people “at the top of the heap”—the rich and famous and the so-called “cream of the crop.” Sadly, I observed too many suffering the pain of popularity. No surprise. King Solomon warned that it leads to “ruin” (Proverbs 18:24). The word means to suffer great displeasure. It actually means to be “broken in pieces.” So it seems for the rich, famous, or, at least, extremely popular.

Here’s what I have noticed over seventy years of life. Admittedly, everything on the list is not every popular person’s experience but too many are. Given the following observations, I ask myself why anyone would crave to be widely known.

See if you agree:

• Popularity is not a cure for loneliness.
• Popularity makes you question why people befriend you.
• Popularity isolates you from others.
• Popularity requires compromise and never making a mistake.
• Popularity subjects you to jealous people.
• Popularity gives you undeserved privileges and creates entitlement.
• Popularity prevents you from much-needed privacy.
• Popularity is distracting and can be addictive.
• Popularity can make you surround yourself only with those who agree with you.    
• Popularity can make you feel used.
• Popularity in one arena can make you think your opinions matter in other areas.
• Popularity can create the need to crave any kind of publicity.
• Popularity encourages a distorted view of ourselves.
• Popularity is rarely admitted and sometimes undeserved.
• Popularity can cause you to strive for fame more than faithfulness.
• Popularity encourages false humility and infects you with pride.
• Popularity is sometimes based on you being measured by externals.
• Popularity generates hyper-scrutiny and causes others to accuse your motives.
• Popularity is sometimes inherited and often undeserved.
• Popularity feeds the ego, not always the mind.
• Popularity is fickle and never enough. It has wings!

So, here’s where I am as an older, not-so-famous person—or as I like to say, “A nobody from nowhere serving a Great Somebody from Everywhere.”

• I would rather be faithful than famous.
• I love saying something “half-baked” and not worrying about being quoted internationally.
•  I am grateful I am not being recognized when I wear grubby, paint-covered clothes to the hardware store.
• I like not having to take myself so seriously that I am panicked over the littlest of mistakes because of “my image.”
• I am blessed to say I have friends who are not impressed with me but “stick closer than  a brother” in spite of me (cf. Proverbs 18:24)

Not too long ago I heard a famous singer telling a crowded auditorium, “I love you all, my friends.” I laughed, thinking, “Imagine all these so-called friends asking for your phone number so they can call you when they need a ride home!”

New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation