Charlie Brown

One Christmas way back when I believed that Santa Claus was real, I woke up to find a red Snoopy banner with my loot on Christmas morning. Extremely cool! It wasn't so cool when my parents informed me that Santa had gotten my banner confused with my brother's, and I was actually supposed to have the yellow Charlie Brown banner that had been sitting with his gifts.

Now, any manly, self-respecting five- to seven-year old is going to have trouble receiving a yellow gift, no matter what it is. But eventually, after insisting that Santa couldn't make a mistake like that and eventually losing the argument, I took it, not really understanding the phrase on it: "'Win.' Have you ever noticed what a beautiful word that is?"

Later my parents told me that this phrase aptly summarized my personality, even at that young age.

To this day I cannot stand to lose at anything. That's why I've all but given up the "sport" of golf. I can't play well because I never practice, but I have extraordinarily high expectations of myself. Those expectations have been shattered pretty much every time I've played. Maybe I should be playing with a different group of people. (I'm reminded of an old Rodney Dangerfield movie in which he owns a "Short and Fat" clothing store. His commercial said something like, "Remember, if you want to look skinny, hang around with fat people!")

Did I mention that I don't like to lose? I don't like to think that there is someone out there in the world who can do a particular thing better than I can.

So what do I make of Philippians 2:3, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves"? Upon serious consideration of this statement, my first reaction is to make a really contorted face. It's an uncomfortable and difficult passage for me.

This goes deep. In order to be able to really, truly do this, we have to be able to assume the best about people even when we're predisposed to think otherwise. That isn't easy. It's human nature to believe that we are the ones who have most things figured out, and if everyone else is smart they'll eventually come alongside our opinion.

By the way, considering others as better than ourselves doesn't mean that we're to think poorly of ourselves. Jesus said that we're to love our neighbor just like we love ourselves. Implicit in that statement is the fact that we should understand that God places value on us.

I've found that unless I'm on my guard, I have an unfortunate and wrong-headed tendency to judge people's motives, usually in the most negative possible way. This is what Jesus was teaching against when He told the crowd, "Judge not, that you be not judged." (One of the most frequently twisted and incorrectly-used Scriptures ever, in my opinion...)

I remember being in a worship service several years ago, listening to the music, watching the singers, and thinking, "Look at that person. What a hypocrite! Up there on stage all dressed up, with a trendy hairdo, raising her hands just to put on a show for all these people. I hope I'm never like that." But when I finally let go of my prejudices and negative assumptions and turned those attitudes over to God, I suddenly -- almost overnight -- began to be able to actually worship in church rather than sitting there being pretentious, pious, venomous, and devoting my attention to things and people rather than God.

Unfortunately I'm still working on the part about thinking that someone else in the world might be a better golfer than me.

Posted in: Christianity, People