ped·es·tal
ˈpedəstl/
noun
- the base or support on which a statue, obelisk, or column is mounted.
- a position in which someone is greatly or uncritically admired.
Having role models is a good thing, a healthy thing in fact. To be challenged by another person to live a life more pleasing to Christ is wonderful and we should strive to surround ourselves with those people.
But what happens when comparison creeps in?
The pedestal. I’m not talking about a physical pedestal or statue, but the one that we all create in our mind. We all have someone, or several someones, that we place on a pedestal in our minds, higher than we might mean to place them. We model our lives after them, we envy them, we long for their approval. We do all of these things more than we are willing to admit, more than I would like to admit at least.
I have more pedestals in my life than I can count stemming from a insecurities and comparison. I make people seem so much bigger in my mind and harbor anxious thoughts about who I look like to them.
You see, social media can be a great source of information, inspiration, connection, etc., BUT it can also be the thief of joy. I keep seeing posts from people I will be going to college with next year and how incredible they are and I immediately place myself below them. I let them reside on the pedestal of my mind, telling myself that they are somehow so much greater than I could ever be, that I will never be able to be like them, that hopefully there’s a chance that they will like me. I think things about people I don’t really know that I follow like “oh she won’t like me when she meets me because she’s so talented” or “Her relationship with Christ is perfect and I could never obtain something like that.”
Throwing it back a little, the Christian band Barlow Girl says it perfectly in their song, fittingly titled “Pedestal”,
“I can't deny this need inside
I have to find the perfect one
But I wonder if behind my need
There might be a reason?
Is my life just one big searching
Fot the one I can adore?
It never works
And I'm just left here wanting more"
However, if God has taught me anything in the last few months, it is that no one is close to reaching the perfection of Christ. No one should be seated on that pedestal but Christ himself. When I did have the chance to get to know the people I put on those pedestals, the ones I had envied their lives from a glance from the lense of social media, I realized they are like me. Yes they are amazingly talented, God-fearing, lovely people, but they have the same worries, same flaws, same hopes and dreams as I do.
Romans 3:23:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 3:10:
"As it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one;"
I find comfort in these words. It helps me to see that because of our sin, we are all on a journey together to please Christ and nobody is perfect. Christ is worthy of the pedestal, he’s worthy of the envy, the glory, the longing. Let’s begin to surrender the pedestal to Him.
