The Spotlight

These last couple weeks have been a whirlwind... Nebraska, Colorado, Minneapolis, and now the Wisconsin Dells where the Summer Training Program I am working at this summer is already in full swing. So needless to say, I have been around people. A lot. Relatives, my EDGE class of 100(ish), and now 50 college students in the Dells. And I'm not really the biggest fan of crowds.

Crowds do weird things to me. I think they do weird things to a lot of us. I'm an extrovert. But crowds tend to bring out a lot of my insecurities. You might not know it looking at me, but it's true.

I had this thought last week that we all have spotlights. And we all have a choice as to who we shine our spotlight on. We can shine our spotlight on ourselves, on others (and by doing so inadvertently ourselves), or on God.

And a lot of times in crowds I get tempted to shine my spotlight on myself. To seek attention and say "look at me world!" OR I want to shine my spotlight on anyone or anything besides myself. To go small and insecure. But this usually ends up pointing the spotlight right back at me since I'm still making it all about myself. So the spotlight doesn't end up on God then either, just all over the place.

The Bible talks about this in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27. 

It talks about a group of Christ-followers as a body. And it depicts parts of the body that shine the spotlight everywhere else but Christ:

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

And it also describes parts of the body that are shining the spotlight on themselves:

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”  

Shining your spotlight anywhere else but on God is simply comparison. When you shine it on yourself, you are choosing to live in pride and attention-seeking. When you shine it on others you are living in insecurity and fear. Either way, you aren't shining your spotlight on God, and you aren't building up His body (go take a look at the whole passage).

So instead of comparing, instead of shining our spotlight all over the place, why don't we choose to shine our spotlight on Jesus today. Why don't we make our life about Him, and not us.