Lifted High and Brought Low

In 2006 I was in Zambia for the first time. A young pastor, my first trip out into the world. I was there to visit some missionaries in Ndola, and I drove the long way up to a town called Mansa.

As we rolled into town, huge signs hung everywhere: "Crusade with Pastor from Denmark." I looked around the car. I was the only pastor from Denmark.

The missionary calmly explained that he taught leadership during the day, and that I was to hold revival meetings every evening. Nobody had told me this. I had prepared nothing. But we set something up, and I got started.

People crowded around the cars as we drove slowly through the crowd. They shouted and cheered: "Pastor Thomas! Pastor Thomas!" I have never felt so welcome.

We started the evening meetings, and I felt like a fish in water. Completely at home, as if this was what I'd always been working toward. My introduction, on the other hand, didn't go so well. I had always pictured Africa as great herds of exotic animals, so I asked the congregation: "I haven't seen any. Have you eaten them?" My interpreter didn't translate a word. He just looked at me and replied flatly: "Yes, we eat them all."

Then came the day off. I put on my white trousers and walked down to the town's internet café to call home to Christina. The whole way, the children ran around me shouting my name.

I sat talking with Christina over Skype. Then my stomach began to rumble. It got worse. And suddenly the entire contents headed south. I never got to say goodbye. I just stood up and ran.

And there I was. The town's celebrated guest. The pastor from Denmark. With a ten-minute walk back through the whole town. In white trousers.

The same children who had shouted my name in admiration now shouted it while laughing so hard the tears rolled. From celebrated to laughed at in a single morning.

I still smile about it. But there's something serious underneath.

Because I know that mechanism. We all do. The day people cheer us, we feel ten feet tall. The day they turn, we crash just as deep. And it's the same mouth that can do both.

Think of Palm Sunday. Jesus rides into Jerusalem, and people lay their cloaks on the road and shout:

"Hosanna, Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" (Matthew 21:9)

A few days later a crowd stands before Pilate. Some of the same voices. And now they shout:

"Crucify him!" (Matthew 27:22)

The same people. From Hosanna to crucify a few days later.

Human approval is a poor thing to build your life on. It isn't evil, just unstable. It can turn from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour.

And here it hits us today. We live in a culture where we constantly measure ourselves by reactions. We post something, and then we check. How many liked it? How many shared it? What did they write in the comments? We place our worth in a tally of other people's applause.

But applause is Palm Sunday. And Palm Sunday doesn't last.

Paul knew it. He wrote:

"Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ." (Galatians 1:10)

There's a freedom in that. When your worth doesn't rest in the crowd's shouting, the crowd can shout whatever it wants. You stand firm, because you're standing somewhere else. God's gaze on you doesn't change from Sunday to Friday.

I learned it in small, embarrassing steps through Mansa. Better to learn it in a ruined pair of white trousers than on a cross.

Where do you feel the pull toward human applause? When do you check the numbers instead of resting in the fact that you're already seen? Feel free to share in the comments.

If you build on human praise, you fall when they turn. If you build on God's approval, you stand firm when everything else shifts.