It's All About You

[HKHaugan]

It's All About You

It's all about you. This very moment is about you. It's about you because you are important and I want to get you to think about why that is so. In fact, when you do think about it, everything that is written is written to get your attention. People write to get your attention. Politicians want your attention, businesses want your attention, entertainers, TV networks, newspapers, magazines, playwrights, composers, educators, economists and anyone who puts their thoughts into writing wants your eyes, your mind and heart to take hold of their ideas.

The greatest book ever written, the Bible, was written not by just one person. No, it was written by a whole bunch of people because they believed God wanted to get your attention. No one writes just for their own pleasure. They wrote because they wanted to attract you to what they thought and what they want you to think about. Why? Because you are important. It really is about you. Thomas Wolfe was right in the play adaptation of his book “Look Homeward, Angel” when the older brother Ben said to his younger brother, “Eugene, the world is not outside, the world is you.”

The sum total of all writing is about you. The greatest novels, the stories, the short, the long, the histories, manuals and textbooks are based on your importance. You are a mine, a gold mine, a treasure in a field waiting to be found. When a piece of literature hits your eye and you read it you respond in some way. Just the response itself is enough. The world in which you live, that is, the world of your personal and interpersonal environment, your home, your neighborhood, the people you know, they are the ones who are affected. The goal of a writer is to tap the inside of who you are. Sure, it can be to exploit your desires, weaknesses and fill their bank accounts. But it can also be to encourage your potential to think, feel and act for your good and the good of everyone around you. Whatever their motivation you are their object. From the most insidious manipulation to the most elegant of ideals a writer wants you, wants to mine your depths, knowing that you have influence in that personal world in which you live.

How do I know all this? Because it was someone's words written down by writers that got my attention, got me to think, got me to feel and got me to make choices and decisions that changed the direction of my life. They didn't even know me or that I would exist but they seemed to know that there would be future people like them and me. They thought I was important. Important enough to write down what one person had to say, the way one person thought, felt, lived, died and rose from the dead to prove His life was the key to all life. In fact those writers, most of them, didn't even realize that it was one person they didn't even know, but believed was coming, that they were writing about. They wrote what we call the Old Testament. How many, we are not sure. But they range across generations.

The rest, about nine, wrote the New Testament.

John wrote the fourth Gospel and after recording what he believed were the most significant details about the life of Jesus he told why he wrote it, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name (Jn.20:30-31).” Luke likewise investigated and wrote an account, “...so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught (Lk.1:3-4).” Mark didn't say why he wrote his Gospel. He let his account speak for itself. As for Matthew, he let Jesus' words speak for him at the end of his Gospel when He gave the disciples the Great Commission to go into all the world making disciples, baptizing them and teaching them everything He commanded (Mt.28:18-20). Both Testaments have a common theme about one person who made His life a dramatic climactic experience ending on a Cross yet continuing in eternity by His Resurrection from the dead.

What makes this person important is that everything He lived, thought, practiced, sacrificed His existence for was me. You see, it comes down to this: because He got me to see how important I was to Him I am writing because you, yes you, are important to Him. That's why, when you get right down to it, it's all about you. And other writers since then have cornered me with their thinking to the degree that what they pointed to was the one book, the Bible, that began to make sense to me because it carried the Spirit of that One person Jesus into my life and brought me a new king of life, spiritually eternal life.

Now, right away, I want you you to know this is not about religion, belief systems, church denominations, philosophies or whatever the cultural forms are that want your loyalty. This is about you, you as a person, in the real world. The real world is who you believe in, trust and are motivated by to be who you are. It's what you as a person want to do with your future. It's who you want to be in your future. Your future being every next moment, every next event of your life, every next personal encounter, that's the real world. It's the future you can't predict from one moment to the next. The future that is unpredictable, uncertain, unsecured and over which you have no final control. Jesus came to tell you that with Him uncertainty about the next moment ceases because He is in it with you. That is if you are willing to trust Him with it. You see it is all about faith, trust, belief, in Him being in you ready to work you through that moment of the real world.

The future you will face today wherever you are and whomever you are with, that's the real world. The world on TV, in the movies, in books and plays is not your real world. It is scripted, authored, where in every and all seconds, word and action are controlled by the author and director, an imaginary portrayal skillfully put together to make you think it is real when it is really their contrived fake world. It is a controlled manufactured sequence of an author's ideas about a world he wants to portray and get you to believe in with characters and situations that are totally imaginary. If you analyze the truth about the authors, the actors and the participants who give you their finished non-reality products, they live as individuals in their personal world of people that moves in direct contrast to what they actually live in their personal experience. Their goal is engaging our attention while they go about their routine of relational interchange which no one ever sees or experiences except when exposed in their own media sensationalism.

The really real world is the one you experience, that's why it's all about you. That's why I am writing. My hope is for you to process what living in the real world is all about. Ultimately it is about who you believe in, who you trust and what you trust to go through that personal processing. For me it is all about Jesus, God the Son, and His Word on life, death and eternity. And all those things in every next moment. You see every next moment is the moment we have all been waiting for. Are we ready to meet it?

Filled with the unexpected, the unanticipated, the dream, the hoped for, the planned for but then changing circumstance, what will we do with that moment when it arrives? Your world, the real world, is waiting for an answer because you are special, unique and important. So many voices are vying for your attention. Which one will you choose? That's what makes Jesus the alluring historic figure who starts with His words for you right where you are. What you think and do are personally important to Him, His Father and His Spirit, the One God who is on your side in your every next moment, forever. Forever begins with every next moment which is, like it or not, the moment you are waiting for. It's always there and everybody in the world is in the waiting room. It really is all about you and the One who would like you to make the most and best out of all your next moments in the real world.