Wrong Tile in the Guest Bathroom

Have you ever seen one of those shows about people buying a house?  They are inevitably looking at massive houses on an extraordinary budget,  They go through the house finding small things that they dislike and talk about them like they are big things.  They declare kitchens outdated, beadrooms too small and bathrooms that are the wrong color.  We always joke about how all of it, and I mean all of it, is nicer than our house.  And we think that we've got it pretty good.

Now I suppose that when you are preparing to spend top dollar on a house, it should be what you want.  But when this is just how life goes, when the attitude that if something isn't perfect than everything is unacceptable rules the day, then priorities need to be readdressed.

In Greek mythology, there was a hunter named Narcissus who was thought himself to be so good looking that he fell in love with his own reflection.  The story goes that he saw his reflection in a pond and could not look away.  Eventually he drowned.  This idea that someone can be so obsessed with our own image that it leads to destruction we call today narcissism.  One look around at our age of selfies and we see that the spirit of Narcissus is alive and well.

The danger in all of this is that our obsession with image and materialism and the right named products and the most modern gadgets and the biggest brightest house means that we miss out on seeing what is really important.  If we let success in life be defined by advertisers and social media, we will end up with a very shallow version of life's potential.

In the book The Purpose Driven Life Pastor Rick Warren begins with the phrase, "It's not about you." And that sums up what I am saying here.  There is a bigger purpose to our walk on this Earth than ourselves and our stuff.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

It's not about you and it's not about me.  And it certainly isn't about the color of tile in the enormous guest bathroom.  God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to Earth to be the embodiment of all that is good and right and holy.  It is only by surrendering ourselves and looking away from our own self image that we can  real fulfillment in this world and beyond.