In the Closet: Keeping secrets with God in a not-so-secret world
Essay 5: Perpetually in Pursuit
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment…
Romans 12:3
I excitedly scanned the book proposal the literary agent emailed me. I knew exactly how to frame my pitch. I had researched comparable books, determined my audience, and written the chapters. But I was stumped. On the fifth page, it asked me about my platform.
How many Twitter followers did I have? How many hits to my blog? What kind of traffic were my Insta posts getting?
The fact is this: I’d recently quit Instagram out of a firm conviction I was spending too much time there, getting too much of a high off of the atmosphere. My twitter account, amounting to three tweets from nine years ago, was beyond neglected. Tired of silently judging from the backstage, I’d been culling my Facebook friends list down (kindly, though, in a block-them approach, not a snarky unfriend or unfollow way) to a couple dozen folks who shared either my maiden name, alma mater, or only posted gratuitous baby photos.
I know myself well enough, know the trapdoor to my soul. I derive energy and pride from lusting after information, and the internet is a big, sucking, muddy hole that constantly wants more and more of my attention.
Social media, I was assured, was the ticket.
Smart marketing, maybe. “It’s the only way publishers and readers will find you,” the literary agent promised.
I just couldn’t swallow it.
When I first joined Instagram, it filled me with joy. Pictures! Connection! An every-hour-of-the-day newsreel! It was the same with Facebook in the beginning, and Twitter, when I ventured there. It immediately gratified my nosy nature–I loved knowing things, snooping around, silently judging appearances and actions, the beliefs of online “friends”, and inevitably sifting it through my own superior thoughts.
I consumed and consumed and rarely produced, but when I did produce, I did it with integrity, or at least that’s what I told myself. When I found an audience of people who agreed with me, it sparked a giddiness inside. Human connection–who says that wasn’t what I was looking for? Who could deny me the pleasure of finding company in the safe, controlled internet spaces of social media?
As a wise person (doesn’t pride always sneak in dressed up as truth?), I flaunted self-control by limiting my posts to once a week or less. No one but my family knew or suffered the hours of being ignored by me, the time I spent looking at my phone.
One day I glanced up and saw my kids waiting patiently for me to put it down.
The self-control, by-the-book, it’s-just-social-media-not-porn! pharisaical I-am-technically-doing-everything-right notion swept right out of my mind.
My kids were watching: I was neglecting my real life.
Knowledge puffs up. It makes us feel important. I was as big as the michelin man, completely, one-hundred percent sure of myself. If someone had asked me why I thought it necessary to maintain a social media persona, I would’ve cited my dreams. This is just what I have to do to get my book published.
I gained nothing by consuming social media, nothing but excess knowledge and stress and indignation over other people whom I had zero control.
My best intentions, my most aware self, my integrity–it was all still fake, because I was under the influence of the world. I was a faithful servant to Distraction–a natural step for the worldly, but unnatural for the child of God.
I could see the ugliness of my idolatry reflected in the eyes of my kids. It needed to end.
In C.S. Lewis’s book, The Screwtape Letters, the fictional Uncle Screwtape, demon supreme, advises his young protege, Wormwood:
We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.
Follow your dreams–it comes straight from Satan’s lips. This is a trick from the tempter himself, to ignore the beauty right in front of our faces and instead busy ourselves with hope for a future revolving around, well, me. It is idolatry dolled up in Adobe photoshop–to never, ever quiet the ambition; to seek glory, here and now.
I know me. I know the dangers of self-inflation and the ultimate price of praise. My book writing, once conflated with marketing, selling, and the pursuit of dreams–it all had major potential to let my eyes slip off the prize.
I’d be constantly getting in my own way.
It wouldn’t be worth any book I could write.
I tossed my proposal in the trash.
VeggieTales, the number one animated Christian series where goofy vegetables bounce around singing “Silly Songs” and regaling Bible stories, was created by the mastermind, Phil Vischer. Phil had a dream from the time he was a kid to make movies and shows that elevated TV by inserting Bible-driven morals. It took him years of hard work, borrowed money, and tedious hours and days of graphic animation–sometimes as many as 30,000 frames per one half-hour show. He was committed to a goal, a vision he’d had from childhood, to produce a hilarious, captivating piece of art–and he did it. Finally, after years and years, he was on top of the game, beloved by children and parents alike. He was the king of a kingdom he himself created. Better yet, he had hundreds of employees that were impacted by his Christian influence. He made his dreams come true and didn’t once compromise. What a marvelous example of how to do it, right?
But what began as an honest dream to influence current culture with Biblical truths spun out of control. He envisioned a Veggietales “DisneyLand” of sorts and borrowed money to break ground on a new office space. His goals for Big Idea to function as Biblical truth in a needy world became watered down as Vischer hired people that did not agree with his original vision. Ill-prepared to run a massive business, he partnered with the wrong people and made some big financial mistakes. At the height of his game, he was a part of a bad deal that fell through and with little warning he was in court being sued for all his money, his little Veggie friends stripped from him.
Reflecting on this difficult time, Vischer wrote in his memoir, “The more I thought about my intense drive to build Big Idea and change the world, the more I realized I had let my “good work” become an idol that defined me. Rather than finding my identity in my relationship with God, I was finding it in my drive to do “good work.”
“The more I dove into Scripture, the more I realized I had been deluded. I had grown up drinking a dangerous cocktail–a mix of the gospel, the Protestant work ethic, and the American dream. My eternal value was rooted in what I could accomplish. My role here on earth was to dream up amazing things to do for God. If my dreams were selfless, God would make them all come true. My impact would be huge. The world would change.”
As it grew, Phil’s dream became influenced by other people and a self-inflated sense of purpose. By the time he realized it, the matter was quite out of his hands.
The memoir ends with a solemn exhortation:
“…I am very serious when I say this, beware of your dreams, for dreams make dangerous friends. We all have them–longings for a better life, a healthy child, a happy marriage, rewarding work. But dreams are, I have come to believe, misplaced longings. False lovers. Why? Because God is enough. Just God. And he isn’t “enough” because he can make our dreams come true–no, you’ve got him confused with Santa or Merlin or Oprah. The God who created the universe is enough for us–even without our dreams. Without the better life, the healthy child, the happy marriage, the rewarding work.
“God was enough for the martyrs facing lions and fire–even when the lions and the fire won. And God is enough for you. But you can’t discover the truth of that statement while you’re clutching at your dreams. You need to let them go. Let yourself fall. Give up. As terrifying as it sounds, you’ll discover that falling feels a lot like floating. And falling into God’s arms–relying solely on his power and his will for your life–that’s where the fun starts.”
(Me, Myself, & Bob, Phil Vischer, 2006)
God is enough. He is enough. He is enough here and now, and He is enough when you let your dreams go– and especially when you let them go.
