I have come to terms with the fact that I need people to like me. I need affirmation, I need to be valued and I need to be needed. It feels good when a friend smiles at me from across campus, happy to see me. It feels good to get a text message from someone just saying hi or sharing something funny that happened to them.But what happens when the smiles stop? When the they don't think of you when something funny happens? With my friends from high school it has been a mutual letting go. But what happens when the message is "I do not want you. You are not valuable."
Today is Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement. I always wondered why we didn't celebrate Jewish holidays if Jesus did. Did they stop being important? I don't think so. Some of my friends and I have decided to be Messianic Jews (or at least try to be) and today is our first Jewish holiday: Yom Kippur. And on this day of atonement it begs the question, what do I need to atone for?
Those smiles. Those text messages. Not because of their existence but because of what they mean to me. At the end of the day it does not matter if I have the love of the masses. The only love that can redeem me is the love of God. Donald Miller says in Blue Like Jazz that "the most difficult like I have ever contended with is this: life is a story about me." Life is not about me. Life is not about how great I am and how much people should love me because I'm fun and talented and yadayadyada. My life should be a glory to God.
My prayer: may my physical hunger today represent my hunger for God. May my hunger for the attention of praise of others pale in comparison of my hunger for His presence in my life.