significant
Thorns and Finding Significance
by Linda Rex
I was sitting on my loveseat this morning admiring the beauty of my indoor forest, when one of the plants caught my eye. This particular plant was given to me last year and is called Crown of Thorns. Legend says a plant from its family was used to make the crown of thorns placed on Jesus’ head before his crucifixion.
Whether or not this is true, I can’t say. But it is a pretty plant, and interesting to look at. It grows in its little pot, feeding on air and water, and puts out new leaves that reach toward the sunlight. I’m sure it has no thought that perhaps many millennia ago its forefather was used in such a significant way. It simply goes about its business of glorifying God by being what it is, a thorny plant.
How unlike this simple, beautiful plant we are! We go about day by day, worrying about the weather, politics, the neighbors, the laundry, and give very little thought to the simplicity of just being who we are created to be—human beings made in the image of God to love and be loved by him. We make life so complicated!
We search for some kind of significance in this world. We try to be the best at something, to impress the boss, to be the most attractive woman at the party. We want to write the best-selling novel, win the Emmy, bring home the Best of Show ribbon from the fair. If we’re not trying to be the best, often we are trying equally hard to be invisible. In this case, our significance is in not-being, being nothing of value or importance.
Somehow along the way, we miss the realization that significance of any kind, even insignificance, is inherently dependent upon human expectations and values. There is a perceived standard that we seek to achieve so that we are good enough or better than most or someone worthy to be noticed. In every contest to determine who is the greatest, there will always be the one who is the worst.
Perhaps this is one reason Jesus was so emphatic that this is not the way to deal with issues of significance. For Jesus, real significance comes through service, sacrifice and a willingness to die for others. The things which we value don’t even count in the real scheme of things. We’d be so much better off if, like the plant, we just lived each moment being in relationship with God and others, trusting him to supply our daily needs.
It’s hard to understand the significance of a plant with lots of thorns. What good is it? Does it serve any worthwhile purpose? Even if it is used as a crown of thorns on the brow of a Savior, the plant’s significance is inherent within, not in how it is used. It is worthwhile because it is. And that’s enough.
And we are significant not just because we are but also because we are made in the image of the One who was, is and will be. We find our significance in our relationship with the One who made us and who provides us all we need for life and godliness. Our real significance is fully expressed as we live in love with him and with others he places in our lives, who share his life and love. This is what really matters and what will last when everything else we value is gone.
To be concerned about our significance is to be inwardly focused. God calls us to be upwardly and outwardly focused instead. We trust him to meet our needs, while we live joyfully and gratefully in relationship with him and others. We are valuable and worthwhile because we are and because we are his.
So we can approach life, with its weather, neighbors, politics and laundry, from a place of rest, of peaceful assurance that all will be well and is well because we are held in the arms of the God who made us and declares that we are his. He has demonstrated in Christ that we are important, significant and valued, not because of our performance or perfection, but because we are and we are his.
Thank you, Father, for valuing us, caring for us and providing for us. Thank you for the gift of your Son and your Holy Spirit, through whom you transform and grow us up into your likeness. May all our significance, value and worth come from you alone. Through Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
“And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’” Matthew 27:29 NASB
Oh, To Be Somebody…
by Linda Rex
This morning I was thinking about all the ways we go about trying to find or create our own significance in this world. As we grow up, we want people to notice us, to see that we are somebody. Unless, of course, being invisible is a safer way of being for us.
But this drive to be noticed, to be considered worthwhile, motivates approaches to life and living that are not always healthy and sound-minded. I came across the story of a young man who discovered this power of significance the day he first rode a bull in a rodeo competition. Somehow, being the guy at school who rode the bulls gave him a feeling of self-worth and made him believe he had value he would not have had otherwise. It was only after he began to evaluate the cost in terms of suffering and loss of life that he began to look for other ways to establish his significance.
It is interesting to flip through the channels on the TV and to look at all the shows based on this whole premise—if I’m the best at this then I’ll be somebody—if I do this thing in this unique way, everyone will notice me. Watching one of the newest sitcoms the other day, I realized that the whole concept of a person trying to be somebody, to be noticed, to be approved of, to be a good person, drives so many of the plotlines. It’s just our story as human beings.
And this story is as old as the history of humanity. My morning reading in the Old Testament today was the 15th chapter of Samuel. God had given Israel the king they requested and his name was Saul. He started out a pretty humble man, but in this chapter we find that somehow being significant and important supplanted his humility.
God instructed King Saul to lead the Israelites into battle against a particular king and told him to destroy everything associated with that particular group of people. God wasn’t being cruel—he was just exacting justice and was inviting his people to be a part of that process. (He does that today in a similar way through our armies and police forces, though he typically doesn’t call for genocide any longer.)
In this case, though, the point the writer was making was that King Saul hadn’t grasped the importance of following God’s instructions exactly. He won the battle, but he kept the king alive and brought the best of the cattle and animals, ostensibly for an offering to God. Then he built a memorial to himself. Note: the memorial built was to the king, not to God, the One who had given the king success in battle.
Needless to say, God was ticked, and so was Samuel. In the unpleasant conversation that followed, King Saul was more concerned about the opinion of the people and his significance with them than he was about the reality that he had alienated himself from the God who made him king in the first place.
Sometimes the price we pay for some type of significance and worth and value is too high. Sometimes we lay down our most important relationships in payment for this feeling of importance and power. We give over the only things that in the long run will carry us through eternity—our relationships with God and each other—for the sake of our moment of glory. Is it really worth the price we are willing to pay?
I think it is instructive that Jesus Christ spent the majority of his earthly existence refusing to accept any pats on the back for being the Messiah. Instead he focused on being a servant. Over and over, he reminded his disciples of the inverse values of the kingdom of God: the least are the greatest; the servant will lead; the dead will live; the rejected are those who are most valued by God.
In being God in human flesh, Jesus had every right to expect people to make everything be about him. Yet, instead, he pointed people to his Father. Whatever he did, he did in, with and for his heavenly Father. It wasn’t about him. It was about the will of God.
How clearly Christ demonstrated that our human existence isn’t about us finding some significance in ourselves or in what we do! It’s not about us at all. We don’t find our value and worth in anything we say, think or do. We only find it in God and in his Son, who enveloped our humanity within his own and gave it ultimate significant, worth and value in himself.
So when we live wrapped up in trying to find some value and significance in our own feeble, human way, we will find in the end only emptiness and loss. Human applause and approval are fickle things. They come and go like the weather changes.
But when we surrender this search to the will and purposes of Almighty God, and seek Christ and value his significance and worth, we find that we are cherished, valued and significant ways that really matter. We are God’s treasure. He has every intention to share his life and glory with us in Christ forever. And that’s something worth sacrificing everything for.
Heavenly Father, we confess that too often we make life all about us, and about what others may think or feel about us. Forgive our self-centered, self-seeking ways of being, and grant that, in Jesus, we might live God-centered, other-centered lives instead. Grant us the grace to obey you first and foremost—to surrender our wishes and wills to you, Almighty God, no matter the cost to ourselves. Thank you for the grace you give us, and for your precious Spirit who awakens us to our true value and significance in Christ. Thank you for counting us as precious, valued and significant forever. In Christ, we pray. Amen.
“Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, ‘I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands.’ And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all night.” 1 Samuel 15:10–11
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