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A lady on Twitter happened to mention a Christian celebrity, one who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, and dismissed him as, “a little toot in the wind.” It cracked me up and gave me a chuckle, but I was also struck by the wisdom hidden there.
First off, I’m going to suggest that perceiving ourselves as, “a little toot in the wind” is Biblical. From dust we came and to dust we shall return. We are but a flicker on a candle flame. All is vanity. Rather then nihilism or despair, I tend to take great comfort in that truth. 99% of the things that trouble us, that cause stress, that we care so deeply about, won’t even matter a few years from now. Five years down the road, we probably won’t even remember what upset us in the first place.
And those who torment us, our enemies or our nemesis, those who we have made so much bigger than they are, like the shadow of a spider on the wall, will also fade into the dustbin of history. Or perhaps someone shall simply turn on the lights and poof the shadow away, revealing nothing but a tiny spider.
I am fascinated by our perceptions, by the stories we write in our own heads, by the power and authority we invest in the tales we tell ourselves. For example said nameless Christian thought leader above, is most likely totally unrecognizable to 99.9% of the population. I wouldn’t recognize him on the street, he has little or no impact on my life, and if I wasn’t free to bask in hours of research and reading, I wouldn’t even recognize his name.
Why than does anybody care what his opinions are? Like, why do people hand their own authority away like that? Or more importantly, why do we turn to “teachers” for answers in the first place, rather than going right to Jesus?
Eleanor Roosevelt is credited with having once said, “nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Whether it originated with her or not is unimportant, the idea contained within is sound. It is also a terrible quote in the sense that it calls us to accountability, to personal responsibility. We can’t always control what happens to us, but we sure as heck can control how we respond to it all.
If we have handed all our personal authority over to, “a little toot in the wind,” we should laugh at the silliness of that idea, brush ourselves off, and simply return to the One we have a direct wi/fi signal too, a 24 hour hotline.
The Bible says in Matthew, “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.”
I return to this theme so often because it often seems as if we of the churchian world have been swimming in the stream for so long we no longer even realize the water is wet. The problem is not what somebody’s opinion is or all the false teachers allegedly circling around us, the problem is that we continuously try to surrender our own authority to just about Anybody But Jesus, and then get hurt, angry, resentful, fearful when they fail us.
One cannot fear false teachers unless one is idolizing the role of “teacher” in the first place. One cannot be left lamenting, “they won’t share the stage,” unless one is first convinced there is a stage one can take possession of. Far too much of the churchian world is ruled by hierarchies, by church as corporation, and we than hand all our own authority away, obsessed about roles and lines of authority and who has influence.
Over and over again I come back to this theme of idols, the idols we create in our own minds, in our own perceptions. What are idols for? They serve to divert our worship, to take our eyes off of the One who never fails us.
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“The problem is not what somebody’s opinion is or all the false teachers allegedly circling around us, the problem is that we continuously try to surrender our own authority to just about Anybody But Jesus, and then get hurt, angry, resentful, fearful when they fail us.”
Boy, ain’t that the truth! Well said, IB. I couldn’t agree with you more. A lot of this fear-driven stuff is because people have received (or perceived) a transactional gospel. Being right is more important than being loved, more specifically, receiving Christ’s love so we can learn how to love others like He does. The gospel is not as much about what you know as it’s about WHO you know. 🙂
Another problem with this relates to how we’re taught. We, as leaders, need to teach people how to think, not just what to think. More importantly, we need to teach them how to follow Jesus and hear His voice. Jesus is the truth, and the rest is just commentary, or speculation, at best. But what we have is one group of followers condemning another because they have a different commentary. It’s pretty childish, actually.
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Oh, well said! “It’s not what you know, but Who you know,” love that too! The heart of the gospel is really captured in the woman at the well, “I met a man and He knew me.” That’s it! She goes and tells the others and very carefully the Bible tells us, than they believed because they went and experienced Him themselves.
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Your message presents a much more eloquent and illuminating observation than the feeble attempt I once made many years ago. In the ‘80s I shared a concept based upon my personal experiences with self-professed believers. I emphasize ‘self-professed’ because just saying its so, does not make it a reality.
I suggested that there exist two types of believers, actual and assumed. Of course, the broader non-believing world is more likely guilty of wrong assumptions, labeling far more as believers than really are. But within so-called believer circles, many are also falsely construed as true believers.
This is a result of misunderstanding spiritual realities and wrongly regarding evidence of true belief in tangible, substantial ways. False notions about what a true believer is create an equally false idea of who actually is a true believer, even as one evaluates their own personal beliefs!
My proposal introduced the notion of ‘second-generation’ believers. These are those whose parents had vital, first person encounters with God and became Spirit-filled, born again believers and experienced ongoing right relationship with God. Instead, they themselves remain content to engage in a vicarious involvement in faith, based NOT on their own personal encounters with God, but only those of their parents as a matter of heritage. It is a profound difference between personal relationship and mere religious exercises. The erroneous idea that God has grandchildren results.
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Oh, God’s grandchildren, I love that. It doesn’t work that way, but good wording! We would call that Catholic DNA. The Italian Catholics in my family believed you were born into faith, so you just inherited it. I guess that’s still true in parts of Europe, like 3 generations have never set foot in a church or read the Bible, but they are all “Catholics” by birth line. Well, here in the US, in the new world, we’re starting to repeat that pattern in a protestant way. “Christian” can have a very evangelical, fundamental, political definition, that has very little to do with knowing Jesus. Ha! Not that there isn’t often some overlap, I’m just saying. 🙂
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Awesome post. I’ve missed reading your thoughts in the time spent away. What a way to highlight the stresses we harbor over little toots in the wind. 😊
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IB, it seems to me that many of the problems people come up with in their belief, is following / worshiping an idol, without realizing it. How many attend a church consistently each week, listen to all the Pastor says, but perhaps miss what is being said, and have their own understanding that they use to then tell and debate others.
BUT, of course, between Sundays, said people never pick up, dust off their own Bible so they can hear Holy Spirit directly. In this case, the Pastor is made into an idol, even though the person misunderstood.
An even worse scenario, I believe, is someone who never will attend a church service, because hypocrites attend, but this person will watch a particular TV Pastor / Evangelist weekly, believing every word is God’s Truth, because the TV announcer said it is so. These people also never read the Bible, but they quote Pastor………. always. These TV guys and gals are idolized, and some are a long way from preaching Truth, but are great salespersons, telling incredible stories, making promises,
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Amen! Love it! Little toots in the wind who only get to blow their horns if we pay attention to them instead of Jesus, Lord of all.
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