It's Not You. It's Me.

Fantasy Football.  If you haven't heard of fantasy football, you aren't paying attention.  Fantasy football has become huge in recent years.  There was a time when it was a niche hobby that a few fans played, but now it is every where.  If you don't know about fantasy football, Google defines it like this:

a competition in which participants select imaginary teams from among the players in a league and score points according to the actual performance of their players.

One thing about fantasy football (full disclosure - I too have a fantasy football team)  is that individual player statistics are much more important than who wins or loses.  If you were on an actual team, the philosophy is that we win or lose as a team.  Not so much in fantasy football.  If I am watching the Lions, I am happy when they score.  I am more happy if one of the players on my fantasy team was carrying the ball.

We love to herald individual accomplishments and not just in fantasy football.  Social media allow us to constantly list our events.  Others feel left out if they aren't doing the same.  So we have the highlights of everyone's lives right in front of us.  

When politicians speak they often like to point to the accomplishments of individuals.  They find that people relate better when a face is put to an accomplishment.  So in stead of saying that schools are improving, they point to a certain school and say how they are improving.  At the State of the Union Address, we know the people sitting around the first lady will be highlighted in the speech and asked to stand and be recognized.

The point is this.  All of this individual recognition can lead to a sense of pride.  It can lead to an opinion that the individual is more important than what is going on around them.  Professional athletes always say that they would rather have the win, than put up individual numbers.  Still, it's hard to believe that the fame and notoriety doesn't affect them.  In the same way, we all need to be cautious that when we are recognized individually, we remember the role that others had in our success,

Pride is the sense that our accomplishments are the result of our own abilities and talents, and not from circumstances that we are in.  And a little pride is a good thing.  We see that our efforts can make a difference how things turn out.  But too much pride can be toxic.

As Christians walk the walk and grow closer to God, we see more each day that it is not our own individual efforts that matter, but rather it is God working through us that makes a difference.  Or in other words, what we can accomplish on our own is insignificant to that which we can do when working in the will of God.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

We live in a world where accomplishments generate notoriety.  We must remember that we do very little on our own and that true success comes when our efforts are aligned with the will of God.