Copy Cats and Lady Gaga

I’ll never forget a few years I watched an interview with Lady Gaga on Oprah (missin’ you, Opes).  At the end of the interview, Oprah asked Gaga what her one piece of advice would be for anyone who is out there watching.  Gaga—who very clearly marches to the beat of her own drum (usually while wearing something edible as clothing)—paused and then replied, “BE YOURSELF.”  Oprah slowly rose to her feet, put her hands together in her signature splayed-fingers clap, and shook her head over and over again in that Oprah I’m-shaking-my-head-“no”-but-this-really-means-“YES!” kind of way.  The way Oprah reacted, you would have thought Gaga just stated the cure for cancer and simultaneously saved every whale on the planet with that one phrase.  It was hilarious because Lady Gaga had simply reiterated, in the most generic of ways, the concept our society preaches to us every day.  Everyone wants to be their own person: do things that no one has done, be in to things that no one else is, answer to no one.  Independence is our culture’s lifeblood.

I find that in my Christian life, I often subconsciously apply those same principals.  I long to have my own “Jesus things”—things that no one else is doing.  X does missions work in Africa.  Y wakes up at 5:00am every day to pray.  Z talks to every homeless person she passes.  A disciples middle schoolers.  B is reading the whole Bible in a year.  C only listens to worship music.

My wonderfully redeemed but deeply deceitful heart admires all of these things and then quietly rules them out for myself, because I want to do my own things for the Lord.

While speaking to the church at Thessalonica, Paul, Silas, and Timothy encouraged the people with this phrase:

“You became imitators of us and of the Lord…and so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.” (1 Thessalonians 1:6)

There is no need to reinvent the wheel for God (that would be kind of #awkward considering He invented the universe).  We don’t need to have our own thing to impress Him or others.

Sure, we should follow the Lord wherever we discern He is calling us.  But when God doesn’t exactly seem to be laying out the yellow brick road, find a Christian(s) whose life you admire, and do what they’re doing.  Seriously, observe what they do for Christ—even ask if you have to—and then imitate it.  Society will hate it, but our Lord will love it :)

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3)