Paranoia

Gentle Reader,

He must grow greater and greater and I less and less.

– John 3:30 (Phillip’s)

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t listening.

Carl, the FBI agent who lives inside our Echo Dot, told me that this morning.

That’s the joke in our uber-connected and wired society: Someone is always listening. Or watching. Or selling your information to Cambridge Analytica. Nothing on the internet is private, no matter what we like to tell ourselves. We’ve structured our lives, from work to relationships, around this convenience that zips through the ether, so complete disconnection isn’t really an option, unless you go ahead and plop the tin-foil on your head, purchase a compound in the woods and go full Mountain Person.

Me, I get the paranoia. It’s a not-so-lovely companion to the fear that’s constantly buzzing in my veins. Is this person truly kind, or is it an act? Am I safe right now? Who can I trust? Where can I go?

You’ve read this here before but I’ll write it again: I came so, so close to deleting this blog. As in, my finger was hovering over the button as recently as three-and-a-half weeks ago. It seemed a natural, logical choice to make. After all, I had already deleted all of my social media posts, including photos and memories that I will never be able to access again. Why not do the same here? Anything to make the anguish of past months cease.

Make myself small. Keep quiet. Don’t rock the proverbial boat.

This is a far, far cry from what my favorite camel-suit sporting Baptist meant. John didn’t quit doing what God had designed him to do when Jesus came on the scene. He wasn’t saying, “Well, they like him better. Guess I’ll go back to the desert and eat some locusts.” Did his work culminate in the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry? Yes. We do see him gradually fade, eventually dying at the hands of a weak king.

But John didn’t quit.

He didn’t stop being John.

His job was to point the way to the Messiah. In so doing, he made a lot of people angry. You can’t call people a brood of vipers (Matthew 3:7) and not make some enemies. There was probably a lot of gossip about John. A lot of vicious rumors. A lot of people trying to block what he was doing.

He just kept going. Not as a superhuman, devoid of emotion or struggle. As John sat in prison, surely knowing that his execution was immanent, he sent some friends to ask Jesus if He really was the Messiah (Luke 7:18-23). Jesus didn’t seem to mind the question. He sent John’s friends back to him with comforting assurances. Scripture doesn’t tell us how John responded to this, but I don’t think it’s too far a stretch to imagine a relieved smile stretching across his tanned face as peace washed over his soul.

Smallness before God is completely different than smallness before people. One is the position of a servant, devoted to carrying out the mission of the Master. Sometimes carrying out that mission involves wrestling with our weaknesses, the things that God is kind and gentle enough to have compassion for. The other is the position of fear and sorrow, allowing someone other than the Master to rule. And that, we call idolatry.

The right response to the feeling of paranoia is to bow before God. We don’t need make ourselves huge so we can squash others before they squash us. We need to sprint to the Throne of Grace, prostrating ourselves at His feet, asking Him to remind us of the proper order of things. Truly, what can anyone do to you if you are wrapped in the arms of the King? In the grand scheme, very little.

You’ll hurt. You’ll cry. You’ll want to rage at people and make them feel as bad as you do. You’ll be tempted to check out and give up. That’s all normal. That’s all part of being a human. Thankfully, blessedly, we have Someone ever-ready to encourage and uplift us.

All we have to do is bow before Him and nobody else.

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