In A Picture

There is something that has been bothering me for a while now, and I think I am finally beginning to understand why. I have felt a growing personal conviction about posting pictures of myself when I am talking about church, Christianity, my faith, my preaching, or really anything connected to Jesus. And I want to be very careful with how I say that because this is a conviction God has been working on in me. I am not making a statement about what somebody else should or should not do. I am not saying I have never done it, because I absolutely have. I have done it plenty of times.

For years, I would post quotes from my sermons on the church page, and there would be a picture of me preaching with the quote underneath it and my name attached to it. And honestly, I understood why - I still understand why people do it. There is nothing inherently wrong with putting a picture of the preacher with something the preacher said. I am not trying to create some new rule about social media. But somewhere along the way, I started looking at those things differently.

I would see myself standing there in front of a statement about Jesus, or underneath some truth from Scripture, and I would find myself thinking, “Why am I making myself such a prominent part of this?” And the more I have thought about it, the more I have realized that I have sometimes made myself too much of the story. Because the Christian story has never been about me finding Jesus and then adding Jesus to my story. My testimony is not really about Ben finding Jesus and then figuring out how to live a better life with Jesus included in it.

It is about Jesus taking this life and grafting me into His story & yhat changes everything. I may have a role to play. I may preach some sermons that God uses. I may say something someday that sticks with somebody. I may write something that helps someone take another step toward Jesus. I pray that happens. I want my life to matter for the Kingdom. I want to be faithful. I want to influence people toward Christ. I want to spend whatever years God gives me being useful to Him.

But increasingly, I am realizing that there is a difference between wanting to be used by God and wanting to be seen being used by God. And I am not always sure I have gotten that distinction right. There is a quote often attributed to the Russian theologian Nikolai Berdyaev that says, “Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten.” That sentence has been getting deeper into me lately.

Because I am beginning to be okay with the possibility that I might preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten. Not because I don’t want my life to matter. I desperately want my life to matter. But I want it to matter because Jesus was seen, not because I was. If God chooses to use me in a visible way, then praise God. If He gives me a platform, then I want to steward it faithfully. If He allows something I preach or write or say to travel farther than I ever expected, then I will thank Him for it. But if He chooses to use me in ways nobody sees, nobody talks about, nobody posts about, and nobody remembers, then I want to be just as grateful.

And honestly, if I get to the end of my life and very little of Ben James remains in people’s memories, but there are people who can say, “I saw Jesus more clearly because of that man,” then I will have received everything I ever wanted. I don’t want to be the thing people see when I am trying to point them to Jesus. I want Jesus to be the thing they see.

So I am not telling anybody, “Don’t post that picture of yourself.” That’s not what this is. I am not interested in creating another rule for Christians to follow, especially one that God may not be asking of someone else in the same way He is asking it of me. But maybe it is worth asking the question. Before we put ourselves in the picture, before we put our name underneath the quote, before we make ourselves the visible representation of an invisible Kingdom truth, maybe we ought to stop and ask the Holy Spirit, “Why am I doing this?” Is this really about helping people see Jesus? Or, if I am honest, is some part of me wanting to be seen too?

That is the question God has been asking me. And the older I get, the more I find myself wanting the answer to be simple. I want Jesus to be seen. I want Jesus to be known. I want Jesus to be glorified. And if He happens to use me along the way, then thank God.

But increasingly, I am becoming much more interested in Jesus being remembered than Ben James being remembered. Because this has never really been my story anyway. It has always been His.