Here’s the next installment of our Hopelessly Devoted series, which highlights today’s entry in our 365-day devotional, Daily Grace — now available in a smaller (4″ x 6″) travel edition! Grab it in our store or on Amazon.
Oh, and it’s ALSO available on our fancy new MBird phone app (iOS and Android).
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Lk 12:6–7)
In 1998, Disney Channel released a film called Brink! in which an otherwise average teenager became a sponsored rollerblader. The following year brought Johnny Tsunami, a movie about a young, award-winning surfer who also happened to be exceptional at skiing and snowboarding. In Read It and Weep, a girl’s private journal accidentally became a best-seller. And then there was the hit series Hannah Montana, about a girl who was so famous that she led a secret double-life to evade the press. Oh, and does anyone remember The Lizzie McGuire Movie, in which a perennially normal teen becomes, overnight, an international pop sensation?
In all of these, the ultimate message is that fame and success are not as important as love and friendship. But that doesn’t really sink in. Somehow, the fame is still attractive. Maybe we think that fame will give us love in abundance. As Zadie Smith once wrote, “To walk into the world and meet love, from everyone, everywhere — this is a rational dream.”
Cut to the present day, when adults, like attention-starved children, clamor for love and acclaim by exhibiting themselves on the Internet. A friend of mine is a recovering drug addict who is all too familiar with this type of behavior. He says that in his former life, he vowed to be either famous or infamous, it didn’t matter which. He just wanted to be known.
If you long to be known, then hear this good news. God knows exactly who you are, and couldn’t care less about the number of followers you have. God awards no points for your singing voice, as wonderful as it may be. Or your beautiful face, or your way with words.
And yet God cares so deeply about you that He has counted out every hair on your head. He knows precisely the dimensions of your body and the depths of your fears and insecurities. You do not need a stadium full of strangers chanting your name — you do not even need likes on your Instagram post — because the God of the universe is … your number one fan.
