Who's Your Hero?

It’s
a cliché now for people to proclaim, “When I was a young boy, my dad was my hero.
When I became a teenager, I realized he was an idiot. Now that I’m older, it’s
amazing how much smarter he’s become.”

But
what if that’s not true for you? What if your family hasn’t reached the
conclusion that maybe you know what you’re doing? As a pastor in a time of
great political polarization and even moral divide—where even the definition of
what’s moral seems up for debate—this notion that eventually our kids
will come around isn’t always true.  How
do you keep your spiritual bearings then?

Or
what do you do if you are (or were) married to a gaslighting spouse? You
believe you’ve loved your spouse with supernatural love, forgiveness and
forbearance, and still, somehow, in your spouse’s mind, you end up being the
villain…

This
speaks to the fundamental notion of who our hero is. If I am my own hero and
others mistreat or even challenge me, I’m going to be tempted to resent or hate
them. How dare they attack me? I’ll be less inclined to respond with grace,
empathy, kindness and compassion because I’m going to make it all about me. The
danger that so rarely gets talked about is that toxic people tempt us to
become toxic when responding to their toxicity. Ambrose, an early church
father, warned believers of this over 1600 years ago when he wrote, “He who irritates us and does us an
injury is committing sin, and wishes us to become like himself.” If toxic
people make us respond in a toxic way, they win.

This
notion of “who’s my hero” also protects healthy self-love and combats noxious
self-hatred.
If I am my own hero and I don’t live up to my own standards, I may start hating
myself. This is my constant temptation. Because of what I do as a writer,
speaker, and pastor, I take character seriously. Even so, I know there are weak
areas in my life and I resent them. I was telling a friend/counselor
about a bent in myself that I loathe, and he shocked me when he responded,
“What else would you choose?”

“What
do you mean?” I asked.

“If
you don’t want this weakness, what weakness or even sin would you
replace it with?”

He
had me. I was wishing for perfection. And why do I do that? I’m tempted to make
myself the hero of my life. How long will it take me to learn the crucial
lesson that my radical imperfection points me to Jesus, leading me to make Him
the hero of my life? When I do that, I’m primed to be used by Him. But not one
second before.

If
Jesus is my hero, then when others mistreat me, I don’t have to make it about
me, and I can love them in return and walk away without being obsessed with
their opinion. Instead of fretting about them, I can meditate on God’s
acceptance and affirmation and feel good instead of nasty.

If
Jesus is my hero, even when I fail I’m newly grateful for God’s provision in
Christ and turn to worship instead of self-loathing. My sin leads me to
meditate on the heroic sacrifice of Jesus and the kindness and generosity of
God’s forgiveness more than my rottenness. One leads to hope while the other
leads to despair.

Because
Paul’s hero was Jesus, he spoke with a ferocity and courage that so many of us
lack today.
Though he was challenged, attacked, and reviled, Paul reminds the Galatians
that he is an apostle not because any human declares it so, or that he decided
to become one himself. He calls himself an apostle “not from me or by man, but
by Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Galatians 1:1). He testifies that Jesus is
his hero when he describes Jesus as the One who gave himself “to rescue us from
this present evil age.” And that sets up the courage Paul displays when Jesus
is the hero of your life:  “For am I now
trying to win the favor of people, or of God?…If I were still trying to
please people, I would not be a slave of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).

In
the end, it doesn’t matter what your parents, spouse, ex-spouse or your
children think about you. Do what God has called you to do. Be who God has
called you to be. Leave all evaluation with Him. Paul believed he was
called by God to preach the message of God and accordingly was determined not
to evaluate himself or his ministry by how he was accepted by women or men or
even by himself.

If
we don’t get to this place, we’re not of much use to God. Peter is such
a powerful example of this. After experiencing so many miracles and hearing so
many profound teachings from Jesus, he denied even knowing Him, just when it
mattered most. This, after boldly proclaiming that even if the whole world
turned against Jesus, Peter would never deny Him! Before the cross, Peter was
clearly his own hero.

After
he failed so spectacularly, Peter gets a little one-on-one time with Jesus.
Jesus restores him, Peter realizes he’s not all that, and bathed in this new
humility, just weeks after the greatest sin of his life, Peter preached
a sermon at Pentecost that launched Christ’s church for all eternity.

If
your spectacular fail leads you to make Jesus your hero, you could be on the
brink of the greatest spiritual work of your life, something that will define
you for all time.

I
get a lot of email and comments on this blog from women and men who want me to
give my blessing or agreement to a previous divorce. They want to be cleared,
and sometimes go to great lengths to describe why they sought a divorce. It
would be spiritual malpractice for me to set myself up as having the authority
or knowledge to do that. I offer general principles, but in the end, we are all
responsible to God for what we decide. Behind all this, however, is my belief
that, regardless of what someone has done, I’m more concerned about what God is
calling them to do, right now. Even if they have sinned, God can still
use them. A lot of their insecurity may come from their desire to still be a
“hero” to others: “Please don’t judge me for what I have done.” In many cases,
that’s simply wasted energy.

I
have been married for thirty-six years (today, as I write this!) so I’ve never
been divorced.  But there are a lot of
other things people could judge me for. That’s not the point! The point is that
we can’t love others or ourselves or fulfill our mission before God as long as
we remain our own heroes. If Jesus is our hero, and if the motive of our
heart is to help everyone proclaim Jesus as the one true hero, we are on the
launch pad ready to go into spiritual orbit. Buckle up your seat belt and
watch as God lights the fire and leads the way.  

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