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Encouraging Heroes. You can be one too.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about things like status and identity, people’s roles in life…that sort of thing.

We’ve all gotten the message at least once that you have to make a big splash in life, to have fame or fortune to be successful. I wonder why we celebrate the rich, the famous, the eccentric so much. Granted, it’s incredibly difficult to achieve those celebrated lifestyles. When I think about it though, I don’t have the motivation or ambition to do what it takes to live that way. Being a movie star for example. Just thinking about the physical demands of the job, the constant scrutiny and lack of privacy is enough to send me running for the hills.Still. It’s easy to think that some of the famous people or world leaders are deserving of the pedestals we’ve put them on and that somehow all of us ‘regular people’ are less worthy. I found a great quote from C. S. Lewis:

The work of a Beethoven, and the work of a charwoman, become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly “as to the Lord”.

And then there’s this verse:

But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, and make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business, and work with your own hands, just as we commanded you.

First Thessalonians 4: 10b-11 (New King James)

Hey. That means my efforts in life are just as worthy in God’s eyes as the efforts of all those people up on the pedestals. Rather than getting down because I’m not one of them, I can just focus on doing my best where I am. God made me to be a unique and one of a kind person; not a copy of someone else.

I can live with that.

Earnest Parenting: advice and spiritual encouragement for parents.