Fame? I’m Going To Live Forever

   To be rich and famous is the new American dream.  In a recent Pew Research Center poll, eighty-one percent of 18- to 25-year-olds surveyed in a said getting rich is their generation's most important or second-most-important life goal; 51% said the same about being famous.  Author Jake Halpern in his research for his book, Fame Junkies, teamed up with several academics and conducted a survey of some 650 teenagers in the Rochester, New York area.  In one of the questions in the survey, teens were given the option of “pressing a magic button” and becoming stronger, smarter, famous, or more beautiful.  As it turns out, boys in the survey chose fame almost as often as they chose intelligence, and girls chose it more often.  And why wouldn't they think that?

   Maybe, because celebrity is the most celebrated attribute in our nation.  When famous people testify before congress it makes the news, even if they have no idea what they are talking about.  Celebrity’s endorsements carry much more weight than facts.  Any organization that wants to raise money benefits when they can attach a famous face to the cause. 

   Look at the rise of the reality television star.  They need no “skill” but to act the fool.  You don’t have to do much of anything useful to be a star.  And yet they are revered.  They make millions of dollars off their image.  Think about how many of the people that top the news reports, twitter feeds and nightly buzz are famous for nothing more than being famous.

   Why wouldn't you want to be famous!  Your paid well for doing nothing.  No responsibility but creating a buzz.  No physical labor, no office hours, just living off your fame.

   Consider however if you will this passage of scripture:

“and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you,”

1 Thessalonians 4:11.

     Here the apostle Paul with the authority of the scriptures gives us a command, lead a quiet life.  The word is one that emphasizes minding your own business, and staying at home.  It’s not out on the town, doing the talk show circuit, chasing after a bigger payday.  He encourages simple, honest, manual work, not the glitz and glamour of fame.  A quiet life.

    Fame and riches often led us into temptations and sin.  That desire has ruined many people (1^st Timothy 6:9-10). Popularity can corrupt our thinking; when we like to hear our name chanted by the crowds more than being whispered by God.  Chasing after such thing may bring us a big payday, it might get our faces in the papers, and put our names on everybody’s lips, but it won’t help us get to heaven.  When it comes to being adored by the world or chosen by God, I’d rather chose the one that is not fleeting but lasts forever.