Look At Me

   I enjoy reading signs of churches because many of them can be funny or profound. One night I was driving home and I saw this quote on a sign: "Lighthouses don't fire cannons to call attention they just shine." I began thinking about that quote, at first because my mom loves lighthouses. Lighthouses are not in your face aggressively saying "look at me." They just have a light that works like it is supposed to.
   Lighthouses don't have a problem with pride. My dog and some of the students I teach have a problem with pride. When my dog wants attention he will lay on what I'm working on, lay on my lap, or (If I'm really not paying attention) he will bite me. My students will call my name over and over and over. If they don't get attention then they will disobey a rule or hurt another student to get my attention. Do you see a common thread? Both my dog and the students use aggression eventually to get attention. Why? Because they are of the mind that their needs are more important.

   Now, lest you think I'm excluding adults from this pride and attention problem, I'm not. Some adults boast about all their things and accomplishments which is outright pride. Other adults may not look for attention with outright aggression like children and dogs, but we do it more subtly. I'm guilty of wanting people to acknowledge my accomplishments without me hinting at it. I try to be humble and not want people to do that; but each time I receive a compliment it makes me feel good. Who doesn't like compliments? In order to get compliments I will work hard. I will go above and beyond. Unfortunately that means sometimes I don't work for the right reasons.
   Colossians 3:23 says: "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." That's one of the reasons why I work hard. I know I'm working for God. But, after a long period of hard work I get tired. I don't work as hard. That's when I could use a pick me up. I try to hint at some things I've done. Guess what? That's pride. We all have pride. We just show it in different ways. Some show it outright, others put themselves down looking for someone to pull them back up. Both of those are pride.
   To get out of that we need to be like a lighthouse. We need to forget about ourselves (yet not become a starving baker, there is a line there). We need to follow Philippians 2:3: "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." The Greatest Commandments tell us to love God and love others. When we follow that and Philippians 2:3 we will be like the lighthouse. We will be reflecting God's glory and shining our lights for him, not for us. Because, in the end when we die it doesn't matter what we had compliment wise here. It doesn't matter that we had a lot of stuff. What matters is what we did for God's kingdom. That means what we did for God and for others.
   So, is your lighthouse firing cannons or shining? Do you have too much pride? What can you do to reflect God's glory today?

   Image from here.