I was told it’s freeing to be unimportant. I have found that statement to be true. But at the time when I heard those words, they were totally foreign to me. Doesn’t everyone want to be important?
It’s the weirdest thing — I find the older a person gets, the less their importance means to them.
What matters is what they leave behind. They have seen the fickleness of being loved and being shunned. Maybe they’ve gained some perspective of what is valuable and what is truly important as they get closer to the end of a their days.
Paul was in a state of contentment when he sat in prison writing his epistles. His written words were most important and parchment to write on was his concern, more than the cold he suffered or the notoriety he gained. His tested words from God were most valuable to him. To Timothy, he wrote, “Now godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). He could’ve added, “That’s the goal.”
These days, words I have lived by, pondered and struggled with to prove my faith are the important things I hold most dear and want to pass on to my children. Not reputation, not possessions, not creative achievements, but only words I know will stand the test of time and have everlasting benefit.
The devotional book I have just finished writing is dedicated to my children and their children with these words: “My tested and proven words I leave you. You are His inheritance and Jesus will drink from you and be victorious.”
“Yet He (Jesus) himself will drink from his inheritance as from a flowing brook; refreshed by love he will stand victorious.” — Psalm 110:7 (TPT).
The family recently cleaned out the crawl space under the house. Boxes and boxes full of southwest greeting cards, hundreds of stacks of signed and numbered prints were among the clutter. All were damp and moldy.
The family wanted to know what to do with them. I told them, “Carry them to the dumpster. They aren’t salvageable. They were very important to me as I produced prints for the Princess Cruise Line and for the market place. Those were the days I was flying high, self-focused with my art. All those images in cards and prints didn’t seem as important as they were at the time when I stressed over them thinking I was important. They marked a time in my art career. That’s all.”
Some things are important, such as the 10 totes of family photos were discovered, including reels of 8 mm film, which I thought I had lost. We bundled them up in a plastic sack to be processed and developed into DVDs. They will entertain the family at the next gathering and we will have a good laugh at all the crooked haircuts and lopsided bangs.
Creative people come with certain personalities. They have big egos. They need to be important. Sometimes the world is too small for them; other times, too big. They are not content where they are. They have to prove something, be understood, and their ideas have to be respected.
Oh my gosh, how freeing it is not to have to be important — to take a back seat, be overlooked and let others run the show. It has taken a lifetime to come to that place knowing godliness with contentment is great gain.
In one of Paul’s prison epistles, he wrote, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content” (Philippians 4:11, NKJV).
I always thought it meant to live with less or more and be satisfied.
I’ve come to the conclusion that he was saying it’s not how much we have or have not. What was important is he trusted in Jesus and was satisfied with where life took him — a prison cell where he could write.
“I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” — Philippians 4:12,13 (NKJV). He learned the secret of what was important.
Final brushstroke: It takes a lifetime to get the clutter out of our lives and the nonsense out of our souls, where we can learn to be content and have a true perspective of what is really important.
Send your comment to bettyslade.author@gmail.com. I’d love to share them with the other folks in Pagosa.
Views expressed do not necessarily represent those of The SUN.
