Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 8-30-15: "The Cure For the Fear of Being Average"

I recently happened upon a quote by Taylor Swift (who you all of course know from the hit "Blank Space" song), who said:
"I am intimidated by the fear of being average."
Maybe in the right context, those words were meant to describe a different sentiment, but repeated so often as a mantra, by her fans and non-fans alike, it struck me as a pretentious, typically "celebrity" thing to say.

I'd rather be an average nobody than live in fear of being like the Grammy-less commoners. I'd rather be the humdrum guy the commercials warn you about (the ones that tell you by not buying their product, you're somehow succumbing to the blah and the boring) - that is, the guy who stays home on the weekends. At least, I'd much prefer to be the average guy if my only other choice is living in the dread of not being able to post pictures on Instagram every Saturday of some new, exotic place I've been, some trip that I feel somehow makes me free inside, or that I'm liberated from the dregs of life by posing next to the world's largest hand-carved statue of Stevie Wonder in some adventurous place like Saginaw, Michigan. Nothing against Stevie or Saginaw.
The reality of life is that the average mechanic who raises an average family in average Iowa has done an amazing thing, even if he's never been canoeing or read Atlas Shrugged. My mother managed an average Dairy Queen for thirty-plus years in average Seminole, Texas; she never made it to the cover of Rolling Stone. But she was the greatest mother I could have asked for.

There are people who, by being themselves, stand out. They're quirky, they're colorful, they're characters. And, there are people who, by being themselves, blend in very easily with the average crowd. But there are also those who, in an idolatrous mindset, are so fearful of the thought of being considered "normal" or "average," that they go out of their way to stand out. It's the wrong kind of attention to desire, because that person is not being who they really are; they're stuck in a one-person show with quite an uncomfortable mask, and addicted to any applause they get. Even sadder, there are so many people like this, it makes them more normal than they think.

But every one of these people - the stand-outs, the average, the fake - are never forgotten before our Father in heaven. And even the most average among us is precious in His sight - He gave His Son for all of us.

If you are in Christ, and you want to be different, you already are: you accept Christ in a world that has rejected Him as God. You're different because you're holy, not through any holiness of your own, but by Christ's holiness. God exhorts the Israelites several times, and repeats through the apostle Peter, "Be holy, for I am holy." To be holy is to be set apart. The apostle Paul urges believers not to be "conformed to this world." The ways of this world are, among many other things, self-absorbed and self-serving. If you dread being complacent, lackadaisical, and average, abide in your Lord and be set apart from this world. Do the mighty works He's called us to do, spread the gorgeous truth of His Gospel, and minister to those in need. Only don't do so to be different, but because Christ gave Himself for us and saved us; do so because you long to see others believe and come to know this joy and grace.

And if those things, the Great Commission, the Gospel, the name of Jesus, makes you average and obscure, unknown and common in the eyes of the self-soothing world, you're in good company - our Lord also humbled Himself and was mired in obscurity as a carpenter for much of His walk on Earth as a Man, far from palaces and praise, spat upon and mocked. If our peace and joy is in Him, we won't be stricken with fear at the thought of being average in the world's eyes, nor will we seek our identity in fleeting things, our liberalisms and conservatisms, our feminisms and masculinisms, our nationalisms and humanisms.
Christ's Holy Spirit writes, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:3-8).
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"He must increase, but I must decrease." -John 3:30
"And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." -Matthew 23:12