Me - Upgrade? You're Joking!

I was standing in line at the Verizon store for a deal that I couldn't pass up.  It’s been over two years now and well past the time to replace my cell phone that the battery was loosing more and more juice, faster and faster every day.  Giant red signs told me about the bargain I was about to seize when the person in front of me turned and told me how the newest and greatest multi-media advertising frenzy had drawn her into the store and the weekend sale, a mail-in rebate, and an additional store credit that were going to make the phones themselves quite reasonable. But then reason checked in for me.  I thought;  “They are thinking my reasoning is something they want me to check before I step through the door. With such a deal on the phones, upgrade after upgrade after upgrade becoming suddenly attainable and somewhat distressing to turn down. Each step toward a better plan, a better phone, a better way of communicating seemed so small and so necessary.”  I said, to the young lady, “I’m not going to wait, see you later,” and walked out. 

A few days later, I was confessing my weekend enchantment with upgrades to a fella  with a penchant for technology, at my favorite coffee house, and my story was quickly met with stories of his own. "Whether looking at smart phones, or iPads, or cameras, I find myself wanting to wait 'just one more month' knowing they will soon come out with the next model, knowing whatever I buy today will be outdated tomorrow," he told me. Yet even foregoing technology, we seem to live in a culture of upgrades. Cars and houses, flights and meal-deals ever tempt us with the constant option of bigger and better and newer. Whether looking at a computer, a career, or even a relationship, upgrading, in some cases, has quickly become a consuming way of life for me. In the culture of upgrades, my coffee acquaintance noted, “contentment is elusive.” I realize that I sometimes chase after crowns that disappear the moment I seize them.

Walking in the last chapter of my life, where the world seems desirous of installing the hope of acquiring more and becoming greater, there are those who stood and if I look hard enough, probably stand today with a hope in dire contrast. That's my soul's desire!  Like John the Baptist standing among the crowds of Jerusalem announcing hope of the coming King. As he offered a testimony far weightier than any status or upgrade, he revealed a posture in life far different than the one easily held then and today. “The bride belongs to the bridegroom,” he said of his relationship to Jesus. “The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less” John 3:28-30. In other words, the crown that will most adorn me is not my own.

A few years later, the apostle Paul says something quite similar. Whatever I could dare boast of, whatever I might accomplish as a spiritual being in this life, Paul, hands down had me beat. “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.” I'm thinking that if there was a way to upgrade one’s spiritual status, Paul would have been sitting in first class. But I have never found such a category in the New Testament of the Bible. I suppose that's why I sort of smile and laugh inwardly when someone uses the term "good Christian or bad Christian." There isn't a way to achieve more or to become more than I am already freely offered in Christ. “My grace is sufficient for you,” Paul was told in prayer, “for my power is perfected in weakness” 2 Corinthians 12:9a. As a follower of the risen Christ, I am to become less; he is to become more. “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” 2 Corinthians 12:9b.

Father, today I take the posture in my soul of one that receives his King! Christ’s grace is my identity; his crown is my only hope. I willingly resign to the fact: “I am not the Christ,” said John the Baptist. But there is one who is.