Significance and the Problem of Drama

Listen here to this teaching.

Today’s class is about drama and our need for significance and to be seen.

I’ve been on quite a few mission trips overseas. This particular story happened in Africa, but I’ve seen it in several countries where the people are very poor. The little kids might own one pair of shorts, one good outfit for church, and maybe a broken toy or a flat soccer ball.

One thing the little kids always wanted us to do was take their picture. They would say, “Hey mister, take our picture.” They weren’t trying to get money or anything else from us. They simply wanted to be seen—seen as significant.

We were taking pictures with digital cameras, and most of the time they never saw the photo, and then we were gone. But to them, it was very important that we took a moment and photographed them.

I saw this in several countries, and it occurred to me that this is a deep need in people.

I want to talk about this because this need can bring us a lot of good, but it can also cause a great deal of trouble. All of us are born with a need to be seen and to feel significant.

Many of us have seen a little baby in a supermarket trying to make eye contact with us—staring deeply, wanting us to look back. They don’t know us, and we don’t know them, but they want to be seen, and they want to matter to us for that moment.

As we grow, if we’re left alone or our needs aren’t met, or someone is unkind to us, we begin to starve for attention and help. Even in a fairly happy family, the sibling pecking order can communicate that we are either less important or more important than our brothers and sisters. Even in a very good, healthy family, many of us don’t get what we truly need.

God also places in us the need to be connected powerfully to Him. As we grow older, we shift from our parents—who often take God’s place poorly or occasionally quite well—to God Himself, who made us to need His perfect love. The angels and our big Brother, Jesus, are also part of His plan for our connection to Him and to heaven.

Some of the dramas I’ve seen in my 30 years as a counselor come from a deep emptiness. And I’ve seen this emptiness in many people who have been regular churchgoers—some for 50 years or more.

I have also seen groups of pastors, most over the age of 50 and many with white hair, vying with each other to be first among many—much like the disciples asking Jesus, “Who among us will be first in the kingdom of heaven?”

The sad truth is: you cannot communicate what you don’t have.

To be fair, they are saved, and they do lead others to salvation, which is very important. Some genuinely have connection with heaven and communication with God and with the angels. But this doesn’t happen often enough. So they can’t give the people in their care what they themselves don’t personally have.

I’ll come back to this problem and its solutions in a moment.

First, I want to describe the problem that emptiness causes.

In my 30 years as a Christian counselor, a few of the dramas people create go like this:

• “God does not like me and is out to get me.”I had to laugh when I heard this because if God were out to get you, you’d be flat as a pancake—or have leprosy. And this person’s life was actually quite normal.

• Another person believed they belonged to a large, loving Southern family, even though the dynamics of that family were cold and distant.

• Another carried a gun to work every day to save coworkers from terrorists. After twenty years without an attack, that gun was probably rusty.

• Another believed, “Women will reject me very quickly,” even though he was educated, physically presentable, loved children, and made a good living.

• Another believed, “Everything always goes wrong for me,” even though they were healthy, earning over $100,000 a year, and respected at work.

• Another believed their mother—who beat them—and their father—who sexually abused them—were great parents.

When we believe these dramas, we begin to create circumstances that prove them true. They manifest over and over again.

Happily, there are some answers to this problem. Let me give a few.

First, our Father, God, puts a need and hunger in us to reconnect with Him. This desire drives many of us to find Him, even if we were raised in a heathen environment—this would be my story. There was something in me that deeply wanted to connect with God, and thankfully, it worked.

We are significant to Him—and that was true the moment we were born. Most people would fight to the death to protect a helpless baby who can’t even sit up. The significance of human beings is also shown by the fact that in every civilized country, it is a crime to kill a human being—no matter how dilapidated, even if they are homeless.

God sees us and feels that we are significant. He is the main Person we are designed to connect with in order to feel that way.

And when you feel that way, you will drop a lot of draining, energy-demanding behaviors. You will no longer need people to think you’re cool, powerful, good-looking, or highly desirable. And strangely enough, when you stop needing those things, people often heap them on you.

It’s like when you don’t need a credit card—everyone wants to give you one.

When you’re not trying to pick people’s pockets emotionally, you have room to actually see others as they are, because you’re no longer staring at yourself in the mirror of your own drama.

If you ask God first, “Is this true about me?” He will begin unwinding those dramas from your soul and your life. A good Christian counselor can help you with this—just make sure they personally have a strong connection with God. A PhD will not necessarily give you someone who knows God.

Learn to meditate. Get in contact with your spirit-man. Open the door of prophecy. Learn to quiet your mind. Learn to visit the Father—He will welcome you.

Connect with the angels and heavenly beings who are your family. You are never alone. Never insignificant.

As I said before, you were significant the moment you were born—and you still are. No less than the moon and the stars, you have a right to be here. That line from one of my favorite poems nearly made me faint when I was an insecure teenager, reading it for the first time.

All these topics are taught on our website and blog, and in the School of the Four Living Creatures, they are addressed in different ways. Or you can book time with Nancy and me, and we can help you learn these things.

Truthfully, these things are not learned in a week or a month—but what else do you have to do?

The alternative is to play out endless dramas and fantasies that bring you nothing.

Denzel Washington recently said that even though he is loved by many, is a very good actor, and extremely rich—none of it matters. Almost like Solomon, he said the only thing that matters is your connection with God. I thought that was pretty awesome for him to say.

Reality becomes your greatest joy and power as you learn to rest confidently in the Lord who loves your soul.