Authentic

That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste. –John Green, Paper Towns

I sit in my car most days for about ten minutes around 3:00 and then do it again at 3:45. During the early session I observe 11 year olds to 14 year olds. During the late session I observe 5 year olds to 10 year olds. I can tell who is popular. I can tell who isn’t popular. The kids have figured this out too.

Popularity is generally seen as a virtue. We like to be liked. Nothing wrong with being liked. 

Jesus was well-liked. People climbed trees to see him. They reached out just so they could touch his clothes. Thousands of people would come and hear him speak. He knew what it was like to be popular.

But not everybody liked him and at the end virtually nobody liked him. The religious leaders challenged him. The government leaders were threatened by him. The masses eventually turned on him. The disciples deserted him.

Jesus knew something was more important than popularity: authenticity. He said it himself: And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed? –Luke 9:25

You get the feeling Jesus knows popularity comes and goes, but authenticity is here to stay. Instead of letting self-worth be determined by others who may or may not think we are funny, attractive, caring, whatever—the authentic person knows value and worth comes from God.

Authenticity is better than popularity. It depends on nobody but you and God.

• Authentic people seek and become who God wants them to be rather than become who others want them to become.
• Authentic people don’t let negative things take up too much space in their lives.
• Authentic people do the right thing and not the easy thing.
• Authentic people value humility and don’t strive to appear more than they really are.
• Authentic people are grateful and not envious.

If popularity naturally comes from authenticity, then popularity is a good thing. If a quest for popularity causes a loss in authenticity, then popularity is a bad thing.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. –Cyril Connolly

Be your authentic self and share yourself with the world. God created only one you.

The best is yet to come…

Craig