I’ve had a very busy past few days in Long Beach. The area has improved so much since the last time I was here in 2003. There are great restaurants and stores all around that didn’t exist before. My meetings have gone extremely well and I’ve made some new friends in the process. The weather has been beautiful but it’s rarely not nice in Southern California!
I had to make one trip up to Burbank for a meeting with a friend and consultant to our production. As I made the drive, I realized – once again – how completely superficial much of this area really is. The entertainment industry has created a existence that is far from reality. Now, that’s not to say that everyone here has bought into that reality but, clearly, many of them have.
Much of what I do in the show is challenge the concept of reality and illusion through the effects that we create on stage. So, I’m very familiar with the methods of misdirection that can easily draw our attention to things that are essentially unimportant in our personal existence. There is this war out here, not just in Los Angeles but in the realms of our personal reality, that is very real – a battle for our time, energies, focus, commitments. Basically, it’s a war for our lives. So many of us become self-absored with little regard for others and we adopt and attitude,”It’s all about me.”
But it’s not all about me – or you. Depending on your personal faith, it can be about a lot of other things. As a Christ-follower, I find it incredibly interesting that the Bible puts it this way, “All things were made by Him; and all things were made for Him.” I’ve been created BY God and, as if that wasn’t enough, I’ve also been created FOR Him. So then it becomes about the choices we make that fashion our reality – our concept of ourselves and God and how they relate to that purpose.
I believe each one of us was designed to worship. We all do it, everyday. Some choose to worship God while others choose a myriad of other things. But we all worship – it’s what we were designed and created to do. Think of it like this – “worship” is really nothing more than acknowledging what you value most in your life. In essence it says, “This is the person, thing, experience, career or whatever that matters the most to me.” For a lot of people in the entertainment industry, it’s about status, position, career – fame. Whatever it is that we value the most, it drives and fuels our actions. Follow the path of your time, energy, money and allegiance and you’ll find the altar to the god of your reality.
I think it’s interesting then that, if we were created BY God FOR God, how many of us have decided to give our allegiance and energies – our “worship” – to something that was actually created rather than to the Creator. I believe each one of us has something unique to give to God that no one else can – our affection.
One writer put it this way:
“You and I are going to spend our lives declaring the worth of something. As a result, we’ve got to make sure the thing we declare to be of greatest value is really worthy of it. It’s imperative that you find an object worthy of your affection. It’s essential that you find a God worthy of your life’s devotion. You only have one life. And you only have one life of worship. You have one brief opportunity in time to declare your allegiance, to unleash your affection, to exalt something or someone above all else. To choose well doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate things of beauty and style. It’s certainly not wrong to deeply love another. Nor is it wrong to value a great job or enjoy an amazing destination. But when we elevate any of these things to the highest place in our hearts, we’ve gone too far.”
There is a war our there, battling for our energies and attention. Who wins is determined by our choices. It’s something to think about….