The Real American Idol

Today I received an email from a company that is sponsoring the first annual “ME Day” in the U.S.  Yes, on Monday, March 16th, they are encouraging everyone to take the day off “to celebrate and share what makes each of us unique and to indulge, nourish and develop our personal passions and skills.”  For moms and dads, they specifically suggest that we try a spa day, a day watching TV, or a day shopping for a gift for ourselves.

Oh, America.

You make me sigh a lot.

The last thing we need to do is to focus on ourselves more.  All we do is focus on ourselves.  I mean, honestly, we are obsessed with ourselves.

Our entire lives are put on display on social media.  These days, half of the things we do with our families are planned with Facebook publicity photos already snapped in our minds.  We live our lives as for an expectant audience, and we think everything from what we’re eating for lunch to where our cat is sleeping today is newsworthy.

Every single day of our lives is Me Day.  Every single moment is taking quizzes about ourselves, evaluating our own feelings, getting satisfaction from the approval of others through likes and comments on our Pinterest-worthy existence.  Or we’re saying too much on social media, inviting the world into all of our most vulnerable weaknesses and waiting to see what it does with the information.  We’re getting offended by people who judge and we’re spending our whole day judging others.  We’re measuring the whole complicated world through the lens of how WE feel about it.  And, we’re always, always, thinking about our own interests, our own dreams and desires, our own opinions, and getting our own way.

And, we still think that what moms and dads really need in this country is a spa day.  We think that what professionals need is to take the day off of work, on a Monday, to sit at home and watch TV.

I’ll tell you what would do all of us much more good.  To give up the myth of “me time.”  To admit that we are infatuated with ourselves.  To decide that we are going to stop being so fixated on our own happiness at every moment of every day.  To determine that we are going to focus on Jesus Christ instead.  To resign that we are going to think on Him at least as much as we think of ourselves.  To work at whatever we do as if we are working for Him (because we are).  To stop trying to justify bad behavior and bad attitudes and bad thinking with our long list of insecurities/the injustices committed against us/the fact that we can never catch a break.  To look around us and see how many people need someone to love them.  To really see people, and not just for how they can make us feel.

I am so, so sick and tired of the sickening obsession with myself.  And of your sickening obsession with yourself.  There’s a whole world of pain and suffering out there, and all we can think about is how we can manage to get a spa day.

No, another Me Day isn’t what we need at all.  We need a life that says it isn’t all about me.  Even better, it has nothing to do with me.  Only Jesus.  Only His work.  Only His plan and His goodness and His unending patience with the self-obsessed.

Let the world go on with its disturbing preoccupation with self.  But you, Christian.  Think of Christ.  Think of others.  And, tear down the idol of self with both hands.