human praise

I’ve told the story before, about my fear of praying before meals in the mess hall in Basic Training. I just wanted to fit in; drawing attention is a bad thing to do in Basic. After several days of guilty stealth-praying I finally went ahead and prayed openly; when I did, I found out no one paid any attention. That’s one of the few things Drill Sergeants don’t care about, and my fellow trainees were sympathetic to whatever got me through the day.

I thought of that this morning, because reading in John 12 made me realize I may still struggle with the same problem. Read this, from verses 42-43: “Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God.”

There are a lot of ways these days to love human praise more than praise from God. I can choose to keep silent when Christians are bashed. I can decide that legally I’m prohibited from being open about my faith at work. I can accept un-Biblical views on biology or sexual behavior in order to be more in tune with everyone else.

At some time, I’ve been tempted to do each of these things, and more. Sometimes I’ve been a stealth Christian because I didn’t want to be seen as different, to be left on the outside. 

Basic Training was a long time ago, but in some ways not much has changed. For a confident man nearing the top of his profession, I can be pretty sensitive about how people see me. More sensitive than I am about what God thinks; after all, God is known for forgiveness and my fellow humans really aren’t. Even at church – I once heard Christianity described as the faith that shoots its own wounded.

Most of the time, I think I’m better than that. Most of the time people can’t mistake my faith. But sometimes, the sound of human praise is pretty seductive.