The Temptation of Recognition

We live in an era of showing off.  Social media has brought a lot of wonderful things, most principally among them the ability to stay connected with friends and family across great distances.  My counterpart decades ago would have no idea what his old classmates were up to.  Whereas I with a few clicks on my phone can tell you all kinds of things about the guy I sat next to in science class 28 years ago.  (He’s a teacher now.)  Yet with all the advantages of social media, it has also created a means of showing the world how good we are.

This might not seem like a bad thing.  After all, it is good to do good things.  Helping victims of a disaster to repair their houses or making meals for refugees are things we should do.  Yet when we take selfies that show off how we helped those on the margins of society or write blog posts about the amazing things we have done for those less fortunate it creates the impression that the only reason we help others is to make ourselves look good.

Those who work in professional ministry or for charity organizations are especially prone to falling into the show-off trap.  Often such people are able to continue their work only through the generous donations of others.  They want people to see the return on their investment, and they do this often through photos and stories of lives changed.  Yet there is a fine line between talking about those who are helped and boasting about we who do the helping.

The temptation for self-glory did not began in the age of the internet.  It has been around for thousands of years.  Jesus addressed it in the first century, and his words were recorded by one of his closest friends, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)

The temptation to show off how good we are is very real, and it is not without reward.  The man who volunteers at a soup kitchen for the weekend could be quite about it and trust that his reward is in heaven, or he could take a picture of himself with a couple of shabby looking kids in need who have big smiles on their faces because he came to hand out soup to them.  If he does the later, he will get the reward he wants.  People will notice for a brief moment that he did something good.  They will think better of him.

Yet what does that say about his heart?  Is he really a good person, or does he just want to look good?

He did his good works before men, and in doing so he traded in God’s reward for a little blue picture of a thumb.

He made a bad deal.

A picture of me washing the car of a needy guy who lives in inner city Sofia.
(I'm also the needy guy.)