“When you’re poor, you are invisible. Every poor person will tell you nobody sees you. So being famous was me just wanting to be seen.” – Viola Davis – Actress
On Sunday, The Kennedy Center honored several great artists, including Debbie Allen—an award-winning dancer, choreographer, actress, director, producer, and philanthropist. She was introduced to the world in the 1980 movie Fame as dance teacher Lydia Grant at New York’s School for the Creative and Performing Arts. Grant challenged her students, “You’ve got big dreams. You want fame. Well, fame costs, and right here is where you start paying—in sweat.” The film went on to show the lengths to which the desire for fame impacted these young artists and their teachers. Nowadays everybody wants to be FAMOUS- the state of being known or talked about by many people, especially on account of notable achievements. People are famous just for being famous—at least for 15 minutes. Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis, in a great display of self-awareness, disclosed above that her desire to be famous was due to a gaping internal hole from childhood. She wanted to be seen and to prove that despite being a child of poverty, she was significant. Have you ever had dreams of being rich and/or famous? Why? What would it mean to you? The Atlantic reported that only .0086% of the population is famous. Your odds of being famous are similar to winning $1 Million in the lottery. Your chances of becoming a millionaire through hard work or investment are a little better at about 6.71% according to CNBC. Prayerfully, your self-worth is not attached to being rich or famous. Jesus said in John 5:51-44, “I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?“
Noted theologian and apologist Ravi Zacharias said,“Pleasure without God, without the sacred boundaries, will actually leave you emptier than before. And this is biblical truth, this is experiential truth. The loneliest people in the world are among the wealthiest and most famous who found no boundaries within which to live. That is a fact I’ve seen again and again.” Even as a professing Christian leader, who was more known and knew more about the Bible than almost all of us—Zacharias was not able to stay within God’s boundaries. A scandal of decades of sexual sin with hundreds of women was revealed after his death. It made me wonder how lonely he was, and if there was anyone who could have helped him. I wondered if his fame made it feel impossible to admit his sin or engage in repentance. Our Christian celebrity culture is out of hand. We seem to have forgotten that our responsibility as Christ-followers, even if God allows us to come to notoriety, is to make famous the name of Jesus Christ. One translation of Psalm 45:17 says it this way, “I will make your name famous from now on, so people will praise you forever and ever.” (EXB)
