(I wrote this post many years ago. It's shocking and embarrassing to look back and see what things upset me then; I like to think I've grown past what you're about to read. Of course, we all like to think we've improved and matured significantly through the years. But until that's tested, we can't know for sure....)
I love discovering talented bloggers on the internet. That is, unless they have more talent than me. It happened recently; I stumbled upon yet another brilliant and hilarious writer with enough profundities to elicit hundreds of comments from hundreds of followers. I read several posts before going to bed and then, do you know what I did? I’ll tell you what I did. No I won’t. Yes I will.
I sank beneath my blankets and cried like a two-year-old who got the smaller half of the cookie.
The next morning I cried some more, this time at the realization that I am still dealing with the "green-eyed monster" (envy). I’d thought I was over him long ago. But there he was, taunting me.
Why did you ever think you could write? Let the numbers speak for themselves, Loser. It came out of nowhere and took me by surprise, because 99.8364% of the time I luuv my country-girl, small-town, no-name, nonGooglable, unTwittered, little-published, simple and slow-paced life. In fact, I normally pity people dealing with the stress of success and pining for fame.
But there I was, acting very abnormal. I said, abnormal. Friends, God did not design us to be this crazy!
Then I got a grip:
That is to say, I grabbed my Bible and read page after page, looking for something to make me okay. (Some say that God is a crutch; that is slightly understated. He is my life support.)
I didn’t take long before I was more than okay. I was feed-the-birds, take-a-walk, and sit-down-at-the-piano okay. I’m talking make-the-kids-a-smoothie and do their pots-and-pans okay.
Among the things I read was John the Baptist.* His ministry assistants run up to him, breathless, and say, “You won’t believe it! All that work we’ve put into this ministry and everybody’s suddenly going after Jesus.”
And John looks at them like, “Hello.”
Then I read about old Lucifer* and what he said before he took the big dive off the high jump. I can do that too. I want more followers than God has.
You’d think he’d learned his lesson, but no sooner had he climbed out of the slime pit and wiped his whiskers, he started selling us the same bag of baloney. Praise and prop up yourself, ’cause nobody else will. Like a pathetic waif, he’s been desperately trying to gain more followers ever since.
But good old John didn’t listen and I’m not either. "He must increase, but I must decrease."
So you know what? I spent a while promoting others that morning. Because so many of them can point to Jesus in a way that gets more people to Him than I can.
And He is what it’s all about.
*John 3:26, Isaiah 14:14